Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style
by Uzumaki-sama011
Summary: She never would have thought her family tree could get so complicated. Her mother's a goddess with anger management issues that thinks of her existence as a personal insult and her father's a pseudo-alien-demon-human ninja from another dimension. Yes, neither she can decide which is odder.
1. Troubles Begin with Gorns

**Story Fandom:** Naruto & Naruto Shippūden / Percy Jackson and the Olympians  
 **Story Title:** Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style ( _inspired by and adopted from **Artemis's Mistake** by  Orvon hoolio; OC Ward, OC Willow_)  
 **Story Genre:** Adventure, Humor, Action, Fantasy, Drama, Tragedy  
 **Story Rating:** Rated M for Mature Content  
 **Story Ship/Pairing:** N/A; Uzumaki Naruto x Artemis  
 **Story Author:** Uzumaki-sama011  
 **Story Size** ( predicted): mediocre _(40-100k)_

"That was your second strike, _Goddess_. I won't allow a third one." - Speech  
" **Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)** " - Technique Name  
 _Ware annei chitsujo o nasu mono._ \- Thoughts

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 **Anime Law #1 - Law of Metaphysical Irregularity -** The normal laws of physics do not apply.

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 ** _Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style_**

 **Chapter One:** Troubles Begin with Gorns

 _"There's only three real monsters, kid: Dracula, Blackula and Son of Kong. Now quit picking your nose and knead that dough!" Mr. Pannucci - Futurama_

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While climbing upwards into the sky's heights, the morning sun could be seen shining brightly over the horizon. The solar chariot bathed the world in its celestial glow, spreading warmth wherever the light touched while numerous birds could be heard chirping and tweeting happily up in their nests amidst the branches of various trees. It would have been a perfect late summer day... if not for the fact she had to go to school... Which was why she was standing in the middle of a parking lot along with her father.

"Now remember, as soon as school's over I want you to..." said father began, repeating the same sentence for what must have been the fourteenth time.

15 years old, 10th grade attending Kushina Uzumaki could do nothing but roll her eyes.

She really wished he would start treating her as a responsible adult.

She was mature enough to be considered one. She was nearly 16!

"Yes, Dad. I know..." she spoke, giving him a look that was an odd mixture of annoyance, exasperation, rebellion and determination, "Stop treating me like I'm a little kid will ya? I'm grown up now, believe it!"

In return, the tall, Californian looking blond wearing a plain white T-shirt, worker jeans and a black jacket along with, oddly enough, a roll of bandages wrapped around his entire right arm that he never seemed to take off, who had no right to look as young as he did gave the petite red head a small grin.

He looked to be no older than 20 when she was certain he was at least 40.

"I know, I know, but that doesn't stop me from worrying." He pointed out unapologetically as he rubbed her scalp, making sure not to clip the hair tie holding her ponytail in place.

Kushina pushed his hand away and looked at him with a gimlet eye; it was bad enough how most of her 'friends' – and she used the term very loosely – already teased her relentlessly for being a 'Daddy's Girl' – a notion she could scarcely disagree with, at least in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind – but they would never stop harassing her if they found out she lied and that, instead of getting the house for herself, she was going to live with her aunt while he was away.

The blond saw the look in her eyes.

"Don't worry about it, because you'll understand when you make me a grandfather, Kushina." he grinned when her face adopted her hair's hue, "Your child will never be grown up enough for you to stop worrying. Though I admit I'd rather be grey haired by the time it happens. Hopefully senile too." His fangs poked their way through his lips, much bigger and sharper than normal.

It was a wild feature she inherited from her dad, along with his sky blue eyes, strange birthmarks on their cheeks and a relatively short fuse.

She wasn't at all angry that she didn't get his height in the package, no sir-e!

" _Dad!_ Stop! You're embarrassing me!" Kushina ground out, growling up at him with a look that could freeze a quarterback in his place (she knew from experience), "I know the SOP, okay!? I'll wait for Aunt Bethy to pick me up once the classes are done, and then I'll have to suffer the twins' presence for 10 days; I'm going to get you back for that, you know." his grin faltered for a moment, making her feel a bit better, "Can you please stop making it look like you don't trust me at all?"

One gold eyebrow was raised.

"Trust you?" he pretended to think about it for a moment.

"...Yeah, not happening."

The infuriating man offered his daughter another grin, making her want to slug him in the face – it wouldn't be the first time too! – before his gaze softened, "Okay, I will. But first, remember the necklace I gave you?"

She blinked.

"The jade green crystal one?" Kushina asked, her voice laced with confusion as her face took on a more natural hue. Her father told her it belonged to her great-grandmother's grandfather and how his grandmother gave it to him when he was 12, just like he entrusted it to her on her 12th birthday. She was smart enough to catch on the fact it seemingly skipped a generation for some reason, something she was sure he hadn't meant to reveal. It was an important family heirloom and, according to him, a good luck charm that could ward of 'evil' in desperate situations.

She didn't give much thought to such claims but she knew that her dad had something going for him on the 'spiritual' side so she simply nodded at the time.

She never took it off since the day he gave it to her, not even once, even going so far as to swim in the nearby lake with it hanging around her neck.

He nodded.

"Yeah, what about it?" Kushina asked as she reached under her neckline. A moment later and she pulled the necklace in question out from beneath her strapless grey shirt and urban camo jacket. The sunlight glinted through the crystal's structure, bathing her face in a soft green hue.

"If sometimes happens to you while I'm gone, anything at all, I want you to hold it into your hands and think about me. It's for emergencies, but I'll find you right away." The 6 foot 2 tall Uzumaki told her with an air of seriousness she rarely saw him in.

Confused by his words, but not enough to question her dad – who was weird even on his blandest days – Kushina nodded.

"Okaaay... But wouldn't it be just easier to call you on your Comwrister?" she pointed out, holding up her hand.

Naruto glanced down at the O shaped device strapped onto a bracelet wrapped around his wrist, looking at it distastefully. It looked like a space-age watch in his opinion, not a phone. At least it was more sturdy than those smartphones everyone was using when he found himself in this world, if only because it was smaller and secured to the arm.

Kushina saw this and sighed. She sometimes wondered if her father grew up in the Dark Age or something to have such distrust towards everyday technology. It took months of nagging and begging for him to buy her a gaming system which he ended up playing with her even if he could never beat her and they still didn't have a VR Tv.

She knew money wasn't a problem since he made a lot of money selling books or something, but he still seemed reluctant to make use of the modern marvels.

Slowly, he nodded, "Sure... but keep that in mind, okay?"

Kushina shrugged. Her father was weird, plain and simple.

His face lit up like a sun, "Great then! Now all that's left is for you to give me my goodbye present." The man-child said as he adopted a pose, turning his head away and leaning forward with his eyes closed.

The young female Uzumaki rolled her eyes and stood up on her toes to give her Dad a kiss on the cheek.

The dark corner of her mind quipped that he still had to lean closer for her to reach him, making her eyebrow twitch several times in irritation.

The smile he gave her was near blinding, more than enough to quell the irritation, "That's my girl. Now go get them, and remember, don't do something I wouldn't. I'll see you in a week and a half sweetie." he said and kissed her forehead before backing away as he pulled open the doors to their car, a fairly standard – besides the orange paint job with a red spiral on the roof, the same spiral she wore on most if not all of her clothes at his insistence – Audi Q7 SUV. It was a semi-old car, but more than enough for what they needed as a two-people family.

' _That doesn't sound like responsible advice Dad'_ Kushina thought with a sweatdrop, well aware of the odd events and troubles that seemed to follow her father around like he was a magnet. That was one thing about him she was happy not to inherit.

[ **AN:** chuckles menacingly]

Turning around once the sunrise colored car was out of her sight, Kushina looked at the structure that was Falcon Ridge High School with a defeated look on her face, surrendering to another day of mind-numbing boredom while pretending to listen to fossils yapping.

The red head sighed.

' _I miss being home-schooled._

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Class was – for a lack of a better term – boring. Today's last subject on the schedule was math (of course), which always managed to put Kushina to sleep. The way things were going it would seem today would be a repeated performance. It was during times like these that Kushina found herself wondering if she had somehow gotten her father angry with her when she was younger or something. The red haired teenager still fondly remembered how fun it was to be home-schooled by her dad with longing.

She learned loads of interesting stuff from him: like how to climb trees and how to survive in the wild, or how to fight and brawl. She learned geography by traveling the continent, hiking, skiing, swimming, sweating, fishing and enjoying herself, enjoying life. She loved those times and missed them as opposed to the monotony of High School.

Even study sessions were never made boring with her dad, because he always made them entertaining or had an enjoyable activity for her to do afterwards. She doubted she could have managed to stay awake through those ancient history lessons otherwise.

Propping her arm up against the desk and leaning into it, Kushina sighed wistfully.

Well, while she was here she might as well attempt to listen to the new algebra teacher that had just appeared today, maybe she could make studying more interesting. Her old one apparently had an accident last week and would be out of it for some time.

"...at Singmaster's conjecture. It asks us: Is there a finite upper bound on the multiplicities of the entries greater than 1 in Pascal's triangle? Now, it is clear that the only number that appears infinitely many times in Pascal's triangle is 1, because any other number _x_ can appear only within the first _x_ \+ 1 rows of the triangle. So..."

And here Kushina decided to stop listening entirely.

Her brain throbbed from just trying to follow along.

Who the heck was Sinkbuster and why should she care about him anyway?

Unfortunately – and much to Kushina's chagrin – her dad insisted she should attend regular (which translated as boring in her mind) school and make friends with people her age, noting that old mountain hermits and wild deer aren't exactly the best company for a growing girl to have. Predictably, his plan didn't survive contact with reality.

The number of _friends_ that Kushina gained since attending High School could be counted on one hand with five fingers to spare.

That is to say, she had none.

She simply didn't fit in. She was too wild, too free, too boyish for the girls, and too... well she actually didn't know why boys didn't at least try to hit on her - not that she planned on dating anytime soon – but she knew she looked pretty enough. Natural red hair was considered exotic, right?

Maybe they felt threatened by her pure awesomeness?

"So, if our equation holds correct, our final answer will be…?" the teacher trailed off obviously looking for volunteers amongst the class. Nobody volunteered.

Scanning the crowd of teenagers her eyes finally landed on the laid back red head trying to doze off in the rear of the room. Looking at the scene with disapproval the woman checked their class register which, conveniently enough, had their seating schedule stored inside it as a quick-access side file.

Their homeroom teach insisted that the seating should always be the same, no matter the class.

"Ms. Uzumaki?"

"..."

Someone snickered.

"Ms. Uzumaki?" the teacher repeated herself, more forcefully this time.

Kushina looked up from her nap, "Umm... wha?!" the pony-tailed girl took note of everyone staring at her.

She looked up at the teacher's face and into her eyes, which were pointedly looking in her direction, before glancing towards the board behind the woman.

"Uhhh, false?"

The class burst into laughter.

The woman sighed, "That wasn't a true or false question." she stared at the young girl disappointingly as she stalked up to her desk, folding her arms across her blouze and looking down on her, "Please don't disrupt my class from this point on, young Miss. Unlike you, I'm sure some students here at least plan to make something out of their lives."

Kushina rolled her eyes, "Oh yes, because Sinkdude's mish-mash will surely save their lives one day, how foolish of me. I can't believe I functioned normally to this day without such enlightening knowledge being fed to my brain. I feel like I'll get an indigestion TBH." Her tone was full of sassyness and snark.

The woman's face instantly took on a pinched expression due to the not-so-much-hidden insult.

And then the bell rang.

As soon as the ringing was over the class packed up like an uncoordinated yet oddly efficient pack, with Kushina hastily picking up her pad and turning around as she made a beeline towards the doors...

Her retreat towards freedom was halted by the sound of the teacher's voice who seemingly managed to get over her shock, catching up to her escape, "Ms. Uzumaki." Kushina stopped, against her better judgment, "Stay behind a moment will you. I need to discuss something with you. Privately."

Her class once again laughed at the red head's misfortune while the group of "populars" smirked, whispering some choice words between each other. One of them, Willow Reid, a long haired brunette who thought of herself as the God's gift to the world, mouthed the words "Dead meat" and giggled.

Kushina felt an urge to knock her teeth in.

The class left for their homes and hangouts, leaving Kushina behind to grit her teeth and face the new face of mathematic authority on her own.

The teacher silently and without a word stalked over to the door and locked it, pulling the shades down before turning towards the girl.

Her previous friendly demeanor was now gone.

"Fool." She snarled.

Kushina crossed her arms and huffed, looking away from the 20 something old lady. She just knew that nice act was all it was, an act. What was the deal anyway, she was just being honest.

"We've long held suspicions about you, but that damn meddler was always on the look-out for us, picking us off before we could be certain." The woman began to say, causing Kushina to look at her weirdly, "You should not have been born, Astrid."

Shock spread across Kushina's visage.

"...How the heck do you know that name!?" Kushina asked slowly, her tone dangerously low and aggressive.

Astrid was supposed to be the name she received from her mother while she was named Kushina by her father after his own mother because of her intense, fire bright hair color that she inherited. Her daddy told her about her 'original' name when she was old enough to understand but Kushina refused to called by any other name than the one her dad gave to her. If her mother didn't wish to raise her what right did she have to give her a name?!

No one knew about it though, no one besides herself and her dad.

And her mother.

The young Uzumaki's eyes narrowed further at the woman, "Do you know my mother!?" Kushina hissed, glaring at her, "What does she want then? Huh?! Why are you here! Tell me!"

The teacher waved her words away, "That doesn't matter spawn. Your existence has caused a war between the gods. You must be punished. That's why I am here." Her smile was growing nastier by the second.

"What!?"

"Silence. You will understand soon enough, child of the Hunt. Now die!" the woman struck out out of the blue, much faster then her frail appearance would suggest she was capable of. Now normally, Kushina's first response – with her quick reflexes and violent anger – to something like this would usually entail a meeting between her fists and the assailant's nose, followed by a kick to the stomach and a sweeping tackle. Groin shots weren't out of the question either. Her father had been training her in mixed martial arts ever since she was a kid and she was reasonably confident she could take down even hardened lumberjacks with a well placed kick, as long as she kept herself nimble and out of his reach.

Howbeit, when the new Algebra teacher suddenly transformed in mid swipe from a fairly nice looking lady to a Gorn, even someone like Kushina would freak out. What had been a soft-spoken lady was now a monstrous, scaly, green, horned, (other reptilian adjectives) lizard.

Her lack of attention cost her as the - woman? Miss Zilla? Lady Croc? –'s attack finally struck her. The young Uzumaki hastily put up her arms in a block knowing she should at least shield her face if she had to get hit and bit back a scream of pain when she felt the lizard's claws rip through her flesh. The injury was more of a flesh wound, but the intense burning sensation that immediately spread through her blood told her she'd been poisoned. The former human's other hand was already raised for another swipe but Kushina couldn't do anything about it. Merely thinking of moving her arms to either attack, block, deflect, y'know, do something combat-y made her vision swim.

And then everything froze as the world turned into various shades of blue, grey and cyan. The door crashed down and people ran into the room. Kushina forced herself to blink, expecting the hallucinations to be gone, because there was no way those two would help her in normal circumstances.

It was Willow and her boyfriend Ward of all people!

"I'll get the dragon," the boy said with confidence brimming in his voice, speaking in a powerful tone that reminded her of dad when he wasn't fooling around and helping the local Marshall. Despite his old-timey name, even Kushina had to admit that the boy was probably the hottest guy in her school. He didn't hold a candle to her dad of course...

Ward pointed a finger at Kushina who found herself frozen in time yet oddly aware of what was going on around her. It felt cold, "You work your pony magic on Kushina and I'll banish it back to Hades."

Willow rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm, "For the last time Jerkface, I'm not a pony. I'm a satyr. SAY-TER. Get your Anglo-Greek right for once."

Ward sighed and cracked his neck, looking at the girl over his shoulder, "Don't make me freeze you in time too now. Behave."

Willow snorted and crossed her arms.

"You wouldn't da-."

Then she stopped moving.

Ward grinned. "I guess I would."

He pulled out a wickedly sharp looking sword, one with far too many spikes and pokes and whatnot's in its design to be of any use in practical combat from... somewhere(?), and started walking towards Kushina, unfreezing her in the process. The red head stumbled back as the lizard's poison started affecting her cells, making her arm burn like it was on fire.

Kushina fell to the ground, breathing heavily while Ward stopped before her with a hand on his hip.

"Hiya Astrid, nice to finally meet ya for real. I'm Ward." He smiled at her when she looked up at him with a fierce glare and casually stabbed the lizard (or, as he called it, a dragon – it didn't look very dragony to her) in its delicate underbelly.

Then the weirdest thing happened. The dragon exploded into dust.

Kushina looked at the floating particles with wide eyes as they blinked out of existence.

What the bedazzler?

Ward, looking completely at ease with the bizarre situation and ignoring the fact she was injured (and poisoned), strolled over to the teacher's desk and rifled through the drawers until he found what he was looking for.

A red Sharpie.

He pulled the cap off and walked over to Willow.

Kushina could practically hear her thoughts, " _If you draw on me, so help you…_ "

She found that she shared the sentiment with the obnoxious bitch. Ew...

Ward raised the Sharpie and moved it until the tip was hovering just a few millimeters in front of Willow's nose. Willow's stare, still frozen in place and time, promised death if he dared.

Raising an eyebrow, Ward chuckled and put the cap back on.

"Nah. You'd kill me later."

He tossed the Sharpie over his shoulder behind him – it completely failed to hit the desk, mind you – and snapped his fingers. Suddenly color returned to the world and the cold feeling that permeated the air was gone. Willow simply rolled her eyes at him and walked up to Kushina, grabbing her by the (injured) arm as she pulled the red head up to her feet.

Kushina held back a wince.

"Come on now, we've got the get moving. There's bound to be more of them."

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Willow manhandled – read: dragged – Kushina into the nearby patch of woods, with Ward following behind them. The forest was similar to the one Kushina often found herself playing hide and seek with her dad after one of his more tedious classes when she was still a kid. She dearly missed those days.

The burning pain in Kushina's arm diminished slightly over time and the red head noticed how her wound was slowly healing as faint traces of a crimson glow and steam could be seen wafting from it. Nothing new to her, she always was a very fast healer and her dad was one too, he said it ran in the family. It was embarrassing yet oddly fitting that her father could throw a kitchen knife from 300 yards away and hit bulls-eye without even trying but could injure himself doing simple home maintenance with a hammer .

The pain and poison remained, however.

The fire haired teenager trudged along with her two captors/saviors as they moved deeper into the forest, keeping pace with them until she saw her chance to get away when Willow tripped over a stump, letting go of her arm in the process as she ungraciously fell on her face. Kushina took off running like the devil was after her without hesitation, angling her body forward several degrees.

The odd stance was how her dad taught her to move in an emergency. It lowered air resistance thanks to the smaller profile and pushed her center of gravity forward, adding momentum and therefore speed while making it harder to keep balance, which is supposedly why no one ran like that. Kushina had no idea half of that was pure bullshit Naruto came up with on the spot when asked why he sometimes ran like he did, when all the people on the Tv clearly did not.

Oddly enough, most of it was true.

Kushina quickly left Willlow and Ward behind her even if her eyes stung and her vision blurred and she nearly tripped more then once.

10 to 15 minutes later, when she was sure she'd put at least a kilometer of distance between herself and her captors/saviors – she was reserving judgement on them for now – she allowed herself to slow down coming to a halt.

She leaned against a tree when she started swaying as her breath came to her in shallow swallows.

Kushina felt like cursing herself for her stupidity as she laid her non-injured hand over her chest, remembering what her dad taught her about poisons and heart-rate. Just how awesome was her dad to know and teach stuff like that anyway?

But then she remembered Ward's stupid time stopping powers, along with the fact her new ( _former?_ ) teacher was a lizard monster. And there were supposedly more of them.

Kushina kept moving.

A minute later and she heard what sounded like howling wind blowing through hollow tree stumps around her as a haunting tune drifted through the woods. It was very eery and Kushina thought she was starting to go insane from whatever poison the lizard affected her with - or that serving of extra spicy Vindaloo Pork she ate last night - when it seemed like the weeds started reaching up from the forest floor and grabbed her legs.

Kushina fell down onto her face, her legs constricted.

Oh wait.

They actually did.

Despite Kushina's struggling attempts to break free it didn't take long for the persistent collection of weeds to wrap themselves around the teenager's lithe body. She trashed over the dry earth, but it proved futile. It took several minutes for Ward to finally come up running towards Kushina, taking deep and long gulps of air when he slowed down to give her a glare, his face red like a ripe apple.

Huh, he must be less athletic than she thought.

"How the hell are you so fast?! And seriously? After we just saved your life? We're trying to help you! If it wasn't for us, you'd be dragon food! Do you know how tiring stopping time is? It's like stopping a semi-truck that's going 80 miles an hour!" he shouted at her once sucking in enough oxygen to support two people and a lion.

Well, that explains his heavy breathing.

"And how-" he started, but was interrupted when Willow came clopping up to them.

Yes, clopping.

No, she was not insane.

From the waist up the 16 year old brunette looked almost normal. Her American Eagle shirt was rumpled, but not torn, and her long hair had twigs and leaves sticking in it from the earlier fall. But instead of jeans and tennis shoes she normally wore she now had hooves. She was like a half-centaur or something.

This must some sort of a crazy dream. She was still asleep in her bed and her dad was still home. Any moment now he would come into her room and wake her up, and then she+d have to go back to school and listen to grizzly old ancient teachers and...

"Stop yelling at her Ward! How would you like it if someone kidnapped you after a monster tried to kill you?" Ward tried to interrupt, spluttering in response, but she silenced him with a look, "It's time she knew the truth."

Truth? What the heck were they talking about. Truth that lizard people were real and could transform into people? What was next? That was actually Apollo up there? Questions upon questions burned inside Kushina's mind like it was a tea kettle waiting to explode and she wished to blurt them all out, but she was still wrapped in weeds and they were covering her mouth so she couldn't say anything, even as she continued to struggle against her bonds.

Who were they really?

What did they want with her?

And was Willow really a half-pony?

"Look, Astrid, sorry, Kushina," the half-girl, half-pony girl started kindly, much different from what she usually spoke like and even corrected herself when Kushina glared at her for using _that_ name, "There's something you need to understand. The world you live in isn't fully real, some of the things in it are illusions designed to keep normal mortals out of business they had no right poking into. The Greek gods and goddesses? Yeah, they're real. Zeus, Hades, and Apollo are all real gods. The Titans are real and so are the monsters that you've read in Greek mythology. The scratch on your arm is proof of that." She pointed out, then blinked in confusion, "Actually, where's the scratch?"

Kushina wanted to shrug but she was kinda, y'know, all tied up at the moment.

Willow shook her head. Now wasn't the time to wonder about the demi-godly properties of the girl lying on the ground in front of her, "Never mind, I guess that's your mother's blessing, probably because you're amidst nature's kingdom at the moment. Now, if you promise not to run away again, I'll let you go. Ward and I are very tired from the fight and chasing you. So, do you agree?" She raised an eyebrow, like she honestly expected an answer to her question.

Kushina gave her a scathing stare, growling at the back of her throat. Her eyes practically burned a beam of anger at Willow.

It seemed that the crazy girl got the massage because she was laughing nervously as the weeds slowly fell away as Kushina stood up on her own twp feet.

"Well now, I'm Will-"

Willow was promptly knocked out by a Kushina Uzumaki Knuckle Sandwich to the face. She fell down for the second time that day.

"Ouch. That's gonna leave a bruise." Ward remarked as Kushina spit out weeds from her mouth and turned towards him with fire – and not the kind a guy wanted aimed at him – in her eyes. He raised his hands in a peace-like gesture when she stepped towards him.

"Wow! Peace Astrid, peace."

"Don't call me that!" Kushina bit out, stumbling in her stance before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she too joined Willow on the forest floor knocked out, her body shutting down to deal with the poison in her bloodstream.

Ward looked between the two out of it girls before he sat down by the base of the closest tree and sighed.

"I did not sign up for this."

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 _Meanwhile..._

"Hmmm... Where is she?" muttered a tall, well dressed man with jet black hair as he way leaning against the door of his car. He looked around the parking lot befure turning towards the entrance to the Falcon Ridge High School in search of Kushina.

Normally, it would be his wife that goes to pick up the kids from school since she worked from home but something unexpected popped up and she had to leave in order to check it out, or as she would say, she was off doing that, he was left here to slowly gain an increasing concern for his adopted niece.

Kushina usually wasn't one to run late.

"Dad! Dad! Dad! Come on! Let's go! Lets' go! The Decimators are playing in a Burner Scope E-League match in less than 10 minutes!" Alex, the firstborn twin yelled.

"Yeah! C'mon Dad! It's important!?" Mason exclaimed in support, just as eager.

The man looked down when he felt his two kids – blond haired twins – tugging at his office shirt, trying to drag him into the car. They were really excited to watch the online gaming tournament that was the next big hype, and the Decimators (he couldn't help but roll his eyes at the childish name) were their favorites.

He shook his head as he patted their heads, "Sorry kiddos, we have to wait for Kushina first." he crossed his arms again. "Get in the car."

"Aww _ww._ "

"Don't let your mother hear you acting like that. She'll be the one to punish you."

The boys gulped and got into the car, grumbling all the while.

After waiting for another 5 minutes for Kushina to appear the man looked at his Comwrister, wondering if he should call her or not. Gods only know what trouble that girl managed to get into by now.

If she was anything like her father, who's luck was almost as bad if not worse than his, anything from spraining an ankle to starting World War Four could have happened to her in the last 20 minutes.

Percy Jackson sighed.


	2. Where? Where? What's there!

**Anime Law #2 - Law of Differential Gravitation -** Whenever someone or something jumps, is thrown, or otherwise is rendered airborne, gravity is reduced by a factor of 4. Some things have been known to "Float" for a few seconds before plummeting to hit the ground, vehicle, or someone's cranium.

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 ** _Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style_**

 **Chapter Two:** Where? Where? What's there?!

 _"Experience: the vehicle of history. Teenagers: the driving force behind fatal accidents."  
_ _― Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic_

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 _Slowly in the darkness, as if not daring to disturb the peace around them, a single pair of blue eyes fluttered open._

 _Those same eyes were then immediately shut because the dark had a surprising amount of brightness to it._

 _Brightness that just so happened to shine directly into those eyes._

 _Hesitantly, slowly, her eyelids parted open again and Kushina couldn't hold in her groggy sounding groan. Just as soon as she came to her senses, she wished she hadn't as a_ _headache akin to the world's toughest hangover was blooming behind her skull viciously._

 _How she knew how a hangover felt was open to interpretation._

 _Several minutes into her headache worthy of the_ _Guinness Records Book when she failed to hear her Dad's customary, chippery shout of "Good morning!" – how he always seemed to know when she was up even from across their house she would never understand – Kushina was ready to_ _face the light of day._

 _..._

 _?_

 _...there was no light._

 _Thanks to her brain still being a bit on the slow side Kushina looked around torpidly,_ _still expecting to see her father walk in and tell her to get dressed for school with his day-to-day offerings._

 _Instead, she blinked in befuddlement once her brain caught up with her eyes._

 _"What the-? Where... where the hell am I? What is this place?!" Kushina asked herself with mixed feelings of dread and wonder churning inside her chest._

 _Was her mind playing tricks on her?_

 _Or... was this another one of those dreams she knew were dreams but couldn't do anything about until she woke up, because they were usually much cooler. Like AAA action series cool, with glimpses of a world where people were breathing out fireballs and making things explode at will! Too bad the images were usually incredibly blurry, she could never see their faces. Hell, she could barely understand their language._

 _Kushina paused in her thoughts when she started feeling like she wasn't alone anymore... that couldn't be right though, this was just a dream._

 _Right?_

 _It was an odd feeling, something she could sense in her gut and her daddy always told her to trust her gut, and it made her feel unpleasant._

 _"Hello?! Is anyone there?"_

 _Silence was her answer._

 _Then she heard an ominous rumble from behind her._

 _She turned around only to scream!_

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Kushina's eyes snapped open with a gasp. Without even catching her breath (or bothering to look around) red head opened her mouth to start describing one of the oddest dreams she'd ever have to her father, her body righting itself into a sitting position on instinct. Yet, something seemed amiss, causing her to become more attentive. One example were the vibrations, of all things, that she could feel underneath her.

They felt a lot like those of a working car engine; normally not a cause for much concern, it wouldn't be her first time to fall asleep on the ride to school, but... as she finally started taking in her surroundings, she realized that she couldn't recognize the interior of said car.

Her mouth froze and her words died in her throat before the flame haired teen swiveled her head around to look towards the driver's seat.

Her mood immediately soured upon confirmation of what she'd been expecting to see; Ward was sitting behind the wheel steering the car with Willow sitting in the co-driver's seat.

The half-girl half-something-horsey was nursing a large bruise on her cheek that was slowly turning purple and wincing.

It would seem she had missed her nose.

A pity.

Clearing her mind from those unwholesome thoughts, Kushina took a deep calming breath and closed her eyes.

"That wasn't a dream."

She knew she didn't sound like she was asking.

"Nope!" Ward confirmed without taking his eyes off the road.

She looked at him sharply (which he ignored) while Willow craned her neck to get a better view of Kushina, smiling hesitantly when the girl looked back at her.

"Damn Astr... erm, Kushina..." The usage of her _true_ name was by now something instinctual to the Camp Half-Blood affiliated Satyresses due to the girl's ever stronger growing smell. She hastily corrected herself as the red head groveled – _how can someone sound so much like a pissed hellhound?!_

Pointing at the girl's arm, she decided to try and make amends with Kushina using some friendly banter, knowing that the whiskered teen hated 'girl-talk' "You've got a mean hook right there. Do you box or something? I think you hit harder than a hammer." she asked with a small smile, ignoring the pain in her cheek.

"No. You just have a glass jaw." Kushina said dryly in return, not really in a friendly mood.

Besides, she didn't box. She did MMA.

That's totally different!

Willow's eyes narrowed at the demigod, "Okay, that's it. Just what is your problem!? I'm just trying to be nice to you! You don't have to be a shrew about it. Aren't you supposed to be daddy's little _princess_?!"

Kushina looked away with a scowl, leaning back into her seat and crossing her arms petulantly as she focused her attention on the trees passing by their car.

"Save it Reid."

Willow huffed at that and turned back towards the road, deciding it was pointless to try and talk to the bullheaded girl. With such a vexing personality it was no wonder nobody wanted to be Kushina's friend.

Kushina not being grateful for being saved was fine - it was her job and she couldn't - and wouldn't - allow herself to be lax at it.

Her being an ass about it in return on the other hand was not _fine_.

One guess as to whom she inherited her social skills from.

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 _Meanwhile, in Ohio..._

Artemis, the great Olympian Goddess of the Moon and Hunting, of the Wilderness and Wild Animals, Goddess of Childbirth and the Protectress of Maidens, narrowed her eyes - like the finest of platinum in colour - in focus. She pulled back the string of her bow, aiming one of her silver coated celestial arrows at the wild beast in her sights as Thalia waited beside her dutifully, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that might be amiss.

What they were currently hunting was a monster never before recorded in all of her eons of hunting and it was probably the only one of its species, if it could be called that, to survive to reach adulthood. And what a beast it was, a testosterone fueled half-breed of a cyclops and a centaur mass mating frenzy, the unfortunate specifics of which she learned from a heavily inebriated Chiron.

Normally the centaur was one of the few male creatures in the Universe she could stand the presence of without immediately entertaining the thought of turning him into a jackalope, but that day had tasted the limits of her patience.

It was lucky for the centaur that events like that (where he managed to drink himself under and act more akin to his siblings) happened less than once a millenia.

Due to its mixed ancestry the half-breed was incredibly dumb - which translated to dangerous for everyone around it – and, to add to that, extremely aggressive.

Unfortunately, the mist was particularly ineffective at its location thanks to the fallout of human's forbidden weapons exploding in orbit above North America over the course of World War III and the death of Hecate in the Great Titan War. Ares would have been proud that his own death plunged the world into chaos.

Back to the beast, it was immune to both fire and most firearms so the mortals were unable to defend themselves appropriately even if they could see it. It could move faster than most cars and it rarely tired on top of being very hard to track despite its stupidity.

It was a refreshing monster to hunt as all the standard ones had become a bore by now.

But it was time to send it down to her Uncle.

 _Twish!_

Artemis let loose the arrow.

Then her nose twitched.

 _Ach-OOO!_

In the short instance that it took the Goddess of the Hunt to draw, aim and let her arrow loose, something caused Artemis to inexplicably sneeze, causing what could only be described as a wall of force to shoot forth from her mouth in a projected line. And instead of following the laws of physics and logic that most modern mortals oh so adored and throwing her arrow off course (Artemis mused humorously on the inside, almost laughing at the thought), the godly sneeze merely caused it to fly even faster towards its target, tearing through the hybrid with the efficiency of one of her blond idiot's less-than-friendly 'jutsu'.

Putting down her bow when she saw the creature drop to the ground and walking out of the bush she'd been hiding in, the Goddess of the Wilderness stopped in her gracious advance as she twitched, frowning minutely when she realized how she had actually just called _him -_ that... Urghh of a man! - _hers_ a moment ago, even if it was inside her mind.

Aphrodite would have a laughing fit if she ever learned of it.

"Milady, are you perhaps feeling ill?"

Artemis sniffed contemptuously at the question, "Nonsense. If I were to believe in mortal customs, it's probably just some pig talking about me." she waved the girl's concern - heartwarming as it was - away, shaking her head, "I'll make a point to strike him down from my chariot tonight if I find out it was in unacceptable context, once I find out who it was."

Thalia nodded silently, nonplussed by her patron's declaration of soon-to-be-murder.

It wouldn't be the first and it certainly won't be the last time her Lady did something like that.

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The following half-hour passed in silence. The lack of interaction, coupled with the fact that not even the radio was turned on was slowly beginning to bother Kushina. So it was unsurprising, considering her family tree, that the redhead was the one to break the silence first.

"Don't you plan on telling me how you know about _that_ name?"

Question? More like a demand. She did not like repeating herself.

She couldn't care less if it sounded rude.

"What, Astrid?" Ward asked nonchalantly while steering the car, uncaring of her feelings on the matter – which were quite obvious – even as he heard the girl's knuckles pop under pressure.

Was that the sound of her teeth being ground?

"It's your 'proper' name, so of course we know it. You should have been using it instead, don't want to make the gods angry now." he said, voice laced with sarcasm.

"Get it through that thick skull ASSHOLE! That's NOT my name!" Kushina yelled in a burst of anger as she punched the boy in the cranium with enough force to make his face kiss the side-window and crack it, albeit not shatter it, leaving their only driver dazed for a moment.

The speeding car swerved wildly over the road because of this – Willow released a high-pitched scream of terror and fright – as Ward fought both against and along with the steering wheel (dependent on the car's immediate propensity to flip and crash), putting his reactionary skills to the test.

It would have been real nice to have the ability to stop time in this instance... except stopping time when he had nothing else to concentrate on was hard as shit which is why he was unable to recreate the effect momentarily, just in case you were wondering.

Willow was still damaging her vocal cords while Kushina grabbed onto the closest bulge around her and held on tight.

The teenager barely managed to get the vehicle back under his control.

...just in time to avoid driving over a steep cliff, like the rim of their left tire did.

Willow clutched her hands over her heart and almost passed out in relief when Ward hit the brakes and stopped the car, turning to face Kushina with a face that was rivaling a lobster thanks to his anger.

"Frack! You crazy girl! Are you trying to kill us!?" he shouted, breathing rapidly as he tried to calm down his heart.

"Don't call me that then! I hate it! I hate _her_!" Kushina screamed back – the picture of maturity that one is.

Ward's mouth opened for a string of M-rated curses to flow ou-

"Ward... just stop provoking her." Willow inserted her own opinion as she cut off his comeback, sighing at the rapidly deteriorating situation and cradling her head, "I want to live till my 20-s."

Ward glared angrily at Kushina (who's eyes screamed bloody murder right back at him). He made a face before he finally turned his attention back to the road, putting the insane girl into the corner of his mind as he decided to be the better man.

Pressing down on the gas to get the vehicle moving again, he muttered to himself about crazy red haired psychos and how he didn't ' _sign up for crap like this_ '.

Kushina continued to glare.

"What was that?!"

Gritting his teeth, he hissed out a reply when Willow kicked him.

"Nothing."

Kushina's glare increased two-fold.

Willow blew air through her teeth, already wondering how to debrief this miserable event to the dusty old goats of Clover; it definitely wasn't the best start of her first retrieval mission and they still had two states to drive through.

' _At least it can't get worse.'_

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 _Meanwhile, with the Jacksons..._

"Naruto's going to kill you." Mrs. Jackson stated without beating around the bush, her arms crossed across her rich bussom.

In response, the son of Poseidon sighed.

"I know..." he lamented as his wife kept her unforgiving gaze on him, causing his mood to sour even lower; he'd already come up with hundreds of mind-scarring images and scenarios in his head of the unspeakable horrors his brother-in-law – because his wife considered the whiskered blond to be more of a brother to her than any of her actual siblings in lieu of him raising her ever since she ran away from her home – would do to him when he comes back and realizes what's happened, Percy didn't need more anguish on his plate.

He doubted the blond would be in a forgiving mood after he finished his self-appointed quest. Not when he'd somehow managed to lose the man's daughter as soon as he swore not to let a hair fall from her head.

 _Percy, if something happens to my daughter, I'm blaming you. Keep that in mind while I'm away, will you? I'd hate to make Annie a widow with those two little helions to raise._

The man's threat – promise – was delivered in a far to cheerful voice to be anything but a promise of utter and complete pain if Percy failed to keep the situation in their town normal.

The feeling of dread in the demi-god's body intensified.

Percy let his head hit the counter.

Ignoring the drama prince that was her husband, the mother of two double legacies started pacing up and down the length of their over-equipped kitchen, one hand wrapped around her other's hand's elbow which was pressing up against her chin, fingers tapping on the side of her cheek.

That was her new and improved thinking pose.

Then she rounded on him, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow while her other furrowed in seriousness.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Percy asked dryly, raising his head enough to look at her with one eye.

"Why are you just sitting there twiddling your thumbs? IM Grover. Hell, contact your brother. You've got allies, enlist their help. I'm pretty sure you don't want to commit suicide by Naruto?" she asked rhetorically, causing Percy to shiver.

He knew that beneath that grinning smile lay one of the most dangerous entities to exist in this world, regardless of them being friends for gods know how long.

Forget Zeus, Ares, Hades, Gaia or Kronos, Naruto was the single scariest person he'd ever come across when he was pissed. Not even Athena could match his frightening factor.

Annabeth continued her train of thought, ignorant of her husband's palling face, "We need someone who is experienced in tracking. It can't be that hard to find a loudmouthed red head with whiskers on her face that can sucker punch fully grown men into unconsciousness." She commented with fondness, remembering the event (that pedophile got what was coming to him, he was lucky Naruto didn't remove what made him a man for it), "You could call the Marshall – he owes Naruto, or even get in contact with Thalia. Anything is better besides lazing about in my kitchen."

Percy's head shot up like it was on a spring, "The Hunt?!" he asked, sounding terrified.

She shrugged her shoulders, "Thalia is a fellow student, she'd do it for Naruto. And Artemis wouldn't hurt her; if Kushina was born a boy though..." she trailed on, unsure with what might have happened in such a case.

"They are the last, and I do mean last group, like after monsters and titans on the list, way past them actually, I'd ever contact to search for Kushina." Percy gave his wife a weird look; one that could be best put as 'are-you-out-of-your-mind-or-just-plain-insane-?-!', "Is your brain burning out from staying too long in the kitchen? We can install air conditioning if it is. It's like the only thing this place doesn't have."

The look she sent his way told the man to make his words hasty with less sass or else he would regret it; sleeping on the couch was the least of his concerns with her.

"Annie dearest, you should know that Naruto wouldn't even bother killing me if I turned the Hunt's attention to Kushina. He'd just do what he did to Ares. You know, erase me out of existence with his bullshit powers." Percy said with utmost seriousness, "Artemis, just like the blond you call a brother is not to be trifled with when she gets in one of her moods. And her moods are always bad when Kushina's concerned. Always." he knew from experience that the _former_ Virgin Goddess was a good person deep down, but just like most immortals, it was really, really deep, beneath layers of haughtiness, arrogance and whimsical anger.

Her love-hate relationship with Naruto (something she denied with murderous glares and liberal barrages of arrows) didn't make matters any better.

"Well then I guess you better get to it." she said as if it was the simplest of conclusions, "I'll summon Chopper while you go get your gear." She didn't even argue, in her mind the argument was done and won by her without her having to say anything, "It would be a great shame if Naruto killed you. You're a very good teddy bear at night."

"Thanks honey." Percy responded as he looked at her with a dull look.

Naruto's crass sarcasm definitely rubbed off on her as she grew into a woman.

"No problem dear."

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"You still haven't answered any of my questions." Kushina complained in an impatient tone.

She definitely did _not_ whine.

"Hm?"

"Who are you guys, I mean really? And where did you learn about that name – this is like the fourth time I'm asking the same question." the whiskered teen grumbled while focusing on Willow. She decided she liked 'Miss Popularity' more than Ward (which wasn't saying much), "What was with that lizard creature back there? What are you?"

Willow didn't answer the redhead's question at first, instead reaching for something underneath her seat and pulling out a backpack, "We're the ones who saved you. Not for us to say. That was a monster. A Satyr." each answer was as basic as it could get.

Kushina stared at Willow for a moment before crossing her arms, pulling a face and pouting at the girl's words.

They clarified absolutely nothing to the redhead.

Willow smiled, glad to be making some progress with Kushina before unzipping the orange colored bag and taking out a much smaller baggie from inside which she then unzipped again. She then pulled out some weird honey-gold cubes out of the baggie, like those sugar cubes that the British people still used for reasons only known to them before nodding to herself.

Handing one to Kushina – who eyed it strangely – she closed and sealed the baggie, putting it back in her backpack and zipping that back before stashing it back underneath her seat as she turned towards Kushina expectantly, one eyebrow getting raised at the demi-god's hesitance.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Eat it." Willow's answer was simple.

Kushina glared at her.

She got was a pair of rolled eyes in response, "Just put it in your mouth you big baby. It's not poisoned."

Hesitantly, keeping one wary eye on Willow who was nudging her on, Kushina opened her mouth and placed the cube on her tongue with deliberate carefulness before swallowing audibly.

She will forever deny the loud, sensual _moan_ that came out of her lips afterwards.

Instantly strength spread through her body, her limbs felt lighter, her muscles rejuvenated and, if there had been any leftovers from the poison, they were instantly burned away. The cube tasted absolutely delicious, like her dad's home-made secret ingredient noddles he made once a month, only ramped up all the way to eleven thousand and beyond. Stars, nay, whole galaxies exploded in her mind as her eyes rolled back into her head and her back arched back, a most pleasant of shudders riding up and down her spine.

Finally, after what felt like a small eternity in Nirvana for the redhead, Kushina's eyes opened and she turned her gaze towards the female Satyr, eyes glassed over still.

Said girl's owlish stare spoke volumes.

Kushina blushed furiously and looked away, her face filling with blood as it colored up to the roots of her equally flame hued hair.

"..."

Ward was left ignored by the two females as he adjusted his pants inconspicuously.

"..."

"Well now... Um-!" Willow coughed into her fist, hiding her pinking face, "That was an ...intense reaction, Kushina. I didn't think you had it in you." she teased while a smile that wouldn't look out of place on a cat slowly formed on her face.

Kushina's ears burned in equal amounts of shame, anger and embarrassment.

"...Shut up."

Willow laughed at the poor girl loudly and threw her head back, which in turn sparked Kushina to try and see how well could she perform _attempted murder by strangulation._

It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

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 _Meanwhile, in China..._

" _Meuuuuwwh-SLINK!_ "

"These things are starting to get on my nerves." Naruto grunted in irritance as he stabbed zombie #357's head with a kunai, forcing the cold steel blade in all the way up to its hilt before twisting it for good measure. The masses of undead trying to stop him weren't even fit to be called target practice, let alone a challenge. Despite their high blunt force resistance and the ability to function without most of their limbs, something normal to anyone who considered himself a half-decent ninja but a foreign concept in this day and age, they were physically weak and, unlike him, were utterly brainless, incapable of using any semblance of tactics or even animal instincts to guide them.

The things also moved slower than old ladies when passing the road, but more just kept on coming.

Was this how people felt when facing the greener-than-grass gennin him? If so he understood their frustration now.

Push kicking the Tiāng Shī away with one leg the blond waited for the explosive note wrapped around the grip to explode, scattering cloth, limbs and gore across the forest floor before drawing another kunai from a pouch on his hip. Naruto himself remained spotless, clean of any injury or his foe's blood.

Spin kicking another zombie's head off before simply using his chakra to make it implode under pressure, the blond father glared into the thick mist surrounding him.

He was not happy.

The former shinobi and his questing partner had been trying - that was the main source of his irritation, trying \- to navigate through this thick mist-filled forest located somewhere in Mandarin China for what felt like hours, only accomplishing to move in circles like lost cattle.

The mist wasn't a natural occurrence, he'd already tried to use some of his Wind Style ninjutsu to disperse it and that turned out to be a bust. He'd even sent out clones in different directions to scout ahead, and all of them came back lost.

No matter which path they took, how fast they went or even how long they traveled, they always ended up back where they started; at this exact same spot.

The spawn for Zombie mobs...

Yes, he played video games. Sue him. He had to raise a teenager for crying out loud!

"Damn it! This isn't getting me anywhere!"

The blond growled as he punched another walking corpse through an unsuspecting tree, shattering its trunk and making the zombie go splat like a can of fresh paint. It helped to lessen his foul mood but did nothing to stop it.

They'd already wasted an entire day in this place, there were only 9 more until the world decided to end again. Terrific.

" **MAW!** "

Naruto paused in his mauling of the next zombie hearing the magical enchantment.

Turning around (after making sure the zombie was defeated), he was awarded with a front row seat to witness how it looked like when a dozen or so zombies got bifurcated by an over-pressurized beam of water. The same beam sliced through the following row of trees with laughable ease, cutting a small swath of destruction through the forest.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk! Be patient chap!" His fellow blonde (who just so happened to be his teammate for the 'mission') commented as she sauntered up to him, hips swaying confidently and a halo of glowing symbols surrounding her left hand, orbiting around it, "We'll save your fellow missy..."

"She is _not_ my _missy_. We are just friends!" Naruto stressed indignantly, looking her in the eyes before huffing.

Eyes which she decided to roll around, unconvinced, "Yes, yes, yes. And grass is purple, seas are red and the sun is black."

Naruto grumbled under his breath at the young woman's lack of respect for her senpai with what was definitely _not_ a pout.

She ignored his grumbles.

"...we just have to get through all of these despicable undead zombies first. Sooner or later they will run dry."

Gamarikichi, a waist-tall samurai toad dressed in Mt Myobokuzan battle armour that was very fluent in English, Chinese and Russian, croaked in confusion at that, hopping after the only female of their small group as he'd been assigned to cover for her in close quarters.

"Hang on a second. Aren't zombies by definition dead?"

Actually, Naruto was thinking the same thing...

"Hush you froggy." The woman tutted down at the amphibian smilingly.

"He's a toad! / I'm a toad!" The two Toad Clan members, one by virtue of being their summoner and the other because he really was a toad, protested in unison, voicing their displeasure at the wrong label. The woman ignored them both as she banished the glowing halo of symbols from sight and looked up in thought. That was when a flock of birds come out of nowhere and swooped down onto the forest floor, eager to feast.

"Carrions." She wrinkled her face in an expression of distaste at the vultures feasting on the remains of the now dead undead as she turned around and began walking into the mist.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at her reaction, stuffing his hands in pockets and cocking his head to the side. Sighing, the blond decided to follow after the sorceress into the misty woodlands, just in case she somehow found a way through the barrier with her hocus pocus.

"So... you've got a problem against scavengers, since when? They're a part of nature's cycle too y'know."

Stopping not ten feet away from another group of undead at Naruto's words, she placed a hand on her hip as she held up a magical staff in the other, looking up back into the air in thought before agreeing, "I suppose they serve their purpose, but do they have to be so greasy and ugly? Couldn't we have cute fuzzy rabbits to clean up roadkill instead?"

Naruto looked at his friend dryly. Of all the things...

"Your husband is the god of _mummies_ Sadie. I don't think you have a right to complain."

Her response to that enlightening piece of information was immeasurably eloquent in both its design and delivery, befitting of a lady of her status.

"Sod it chum."

The whiskered male rolled his blues before concentrating back at the matter on hand, flicking a small chakra shuriken towards the mob and watching it explode in a sphere of white. They had to figure out a way to get rid of this damn mist before the blond promptly blew a fuse and simply decided to **Bijudama** the whole place till the mist simply vaporized into atoms, if at that.

They _were_ on a timetable.

 _I wonder how Kushina's doing. Hopefully her day's been more normal than mine._

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Willow, hands on her hips, stared at Ward with an expression of incredulity.

"You forgot to fill the tank?! That car could drive two thousand miles without the need to refill! And you emptied the whole thing?!" she shrieked, her voice rising several octaves above humane, as in merciful to hearing, levels. The car she was talking about, the GT Mustang - their car - was a tried and tested creation of Half-Blood camp. Originally designed by several members of the Hephaestus cabin over two decades ago; the portion which thought that making the world's first stratoship (the government was still investigating it's sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance) look and perform like an over-sized trieme was silly. The design was fairly simple since it still resembled a regular Mustang on the outside, only now instead a trunk it was fitted with a big magical tank capable of holding a small lake's worth of fuel. Thanks to it, demigods didn't need the Mist to hide their transportation and quests were easier to perform, as long as one of the quest takers was old enough to drive.

The boy leaning on the aforementioned car shrugged.

"What does it matter if we're out of gas, we're almost at Camp Half-Blood anyhow. It's only a days walk from here. Half a day if you double time it. I'll recover it later." he reasoned quite reasonably (in his opinion), considering his company.

Willow stomped her hove on the ground, "It's 7 pm!"

Ward snorted as he pulled the door open, reaching into the Mustang and beneath the driver's seat to pick up his backpack and take the keys from the ignition, "What are you complaining about Willow, you're a satyr. Shouldn't you be happy? You're in your natural environment." he drawled.

"Now that's just speciest. We aren't clones, Ward! I love my soft bedding and shampoo thank you very much!"

Off to the sidelines and by the closest tree, Kushina could only look at the conversation that was quickly dissolving into a contest of bickering with traces of amusement. She had to be amused, or else she'd be sad, confused and scared, and her dad hated when she was sad, confused or scared. And it was one of her life's missions to make sure her papa was happy, so she couldn't let herself feel down. She still had no idea why did the two of her school's most popular kids decided to kidnap/save her, but whatever their reasons were they won't save them from her Aunt's wrath later.

Still, as things stood, Kushina decided to go along with them.

Anything was better than school.

"Well if someone remembered to fill the car, we wouldn't be in this mess, _Mr. Time Freeze!_ "

"And I'm starting to doubt your mental capabilities. At what station could I possibly fill the damn thing!?"

"Arghh-"

Shaking her head at the bickering duo (Willow was attempting to trample the boy), she turned on her leg and walked deeper into the woods. She had to get away from their stop, to properly process what she had seen today.

Looking up into the orange and purple sunset as she raised her arms and crossed them behind her head, the redhead spied the white surface of the moon through the fading sunlight, causing her to grin slightly. She always liked looking at the thing at night, or on those rare times it was visible in the daylight. It made her feel stronger, _fresher_.

Her dad said that also ran in the family.

And then a light-bulb flickered to life over her head, making her want to slap herself.

She was so stupid!

Bringing her hands down, she eagerly pressed one of the small buttons on her Comwrister, the on-off button. Her Aunt would give her a scolding of a life-time when she saw her again and would more than likely raise hell before ratting her out to her father. Her Uncle would probably be understanding of her situation, he was cool like that, always going with the flow of things. Nothing ever surprised him and he never got upset with her. Maybe it was a daddy thing?

Her own dad would probably laugh at her poor luck... Or he might ground her until she had gray hair.

A light giggle escaped her lips at the thought despite her best efforts to hold it in.

 _CLICK CLICK_

The whiskered teen frowned when nothing happened. No beeping sounds, no blinking lights, no pop-up interface in front of her. Kushina kept pressing the buttons on her Comwrister with growing frustration, only getting the in-built 3D projected screen to flicker a couple of times before it burst into sparks, causing the red head to shriek in surprise and nearly fall on her behind.

The Uzumaki scowled, ripping the thing from her wrist and throwing it deep into the woods before she crossed her arms and sat down to pout, ignoring her loitering.

Figures her Comwrister died the one time she really needed it.

"Ah, there you are. You really should stop wandering off like that, what if more monsters attacked you when we aren't there to save you."

Kushina ignored their words, "Will you finally tell me where we're going? Or is that too much to ask?"

The two shared a glance, "New York, Camp Half-Blood."

"Camp Half-what now?"

That felt oddly racist to Kushina, she was sure she'd heard it wrong.

"Camp Half-Blood."

"..."

"..."

"And what's a Half-Blood? Or are we going to play 20 questions all day before I get a straight answer?" she asked, annoyed.

The brunette's face stretched into a grin, she was starting to enjoy holding all the cards.

"You are."

" _Willow...!_ "

 **~~~ END CHAPTER ~~~**

 **Author's Notes:** For any Iron Man fans out there, or just people who want to read a very interesting and exceptionally well written story in general, go read " _Another Stark One_ ". I was up to 5 am to finish it the day I stumbled across it. Totally worth it!


	3. To Awaken, To Comprehend

**Anime Law** **#** **7** - **First Law of Temporal Mortality -** "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys" both die in one of two ways - either so quick they don't even see it coming, OR it's a long drawn out affair where the character gains much insight to the workings of society, human existence or why the toast always lands butter side down.

NOTE: Sometimes, Anime heroes or villains never really die! In these rare cases they were a clone or cyborg and the real hero/villain's suspiciously missing in "Malletspace", or something.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

 ** _Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style_**

 **Chapter Three:** To Awaken, To Comprehend

 _"If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the  
sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper  
armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!"  
_ _― Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic_

~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~

 _Kushina had a really weird dream that night._

 _In her dream she saw a beautiful silver doe with glittering fur that twinkled in the moonlight lying in a tranquil meadow surrounded by thick, vivid greenery. Tree leaves danced around the animal gently across the wind while the grass rippled around the doe harmoniously._

 _Kushina felt at peace watching the scene. She also felt incredibly out of place._

 _There was an unfamiliar feeling prickling in the depths of her stomach as she watched the doe, one that her sleeping mind couldn't properly catalogue._

 _As Kushina watched the doe lay peacefully beneath the glow of the moonlight other animals came to visit the woodland creature._

 _The first animal was an odd looking fox with glowing goldlike fur and, if she was seeing things correctly, rabbit ears. The fox appeared sickly and exhausted, it's fur dim, ragged and worn out. Yet, despite how bad it looked it still managed to grin at the doe while sitting on its haunches as the bigger animal regarded it inquisitively._

 _They began to talk; what she couldn't hear._

 _Kushina had no idea why but her lips stretched into a smile watching them interact, especially when the fox and doe started playing tag of all things. The smile vanished when the two animals started bickering vehemently, the small fox - now looking much cleaner and healthier than before - looking quite angry as it vanished in a flash of light and the sound of a chiming tinkle. The next animal Kushina saw was an American eagle that swooped down from the clouds and landed on a nearby branch. All it did was look at the doe for a short while (which refused to meet its gaze) prior to flapping its enormous wings and leaving. A yellow wolf and a dazzling peacock followed, then a sparrow before more and more animals arrived until it resembled some kind of an unhinged safari since some of the creatures didn't even have a corporeal form._

 _And everyone wasn't all chummy-chummy. The birds were particularly vicious. They were mocking the doe._

 _All of them were trying to attack her, so it didn't really seem like a fair fight, even as the doe sat there, contemplating._

 _Every time some animal moved to attack the doe golden arrows, purple staves and flashes of lightning would appear out of nowhere to hold them off._

 _Then, when a column of fire of all things tried to advance at the doe a pure white horse with teal mane galloped up out of a nearby lake and shot water at the fire. The peacock tried to attack again alongside an owl, but grapevines grew around them and forced the birds back. All the while the rabbit-fox creature from before sat at the sides, keeping his tail wrapped around a small bundle of red fur that seemed to be wiggling in its grasp, a conflicted look on its face._

 _The yellow wolf and the American eagle returned, putting the fox in between them as they stared at the creature; not quite harshly, but not quite friendly either._

 _The doe was attacked again and it seemed like the fox moved to help it, but the two endangered animals moved to block it when the doe looked up and glared at the fox with furious eyes.  
_

 _With a growl that made her skin crawl - nothing so powerful sounding deserved to come from such a small thing - the fox once again vanished in a dazzling glow of light._

 _This time it didn't come back._

~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~

With a small yawn, Kushina woke up the next morning to the sight of the sun peeking over the eastern horizon, rays of light slipping through the forest branches like volumetric god rays from her favorite video games.

Blinking in wonder, she pondered if that was actually Apollo up there.

Ignoring the rising tide of questions in the back of her mind that were putting in doubt everything she ever thought she knew about the world, Kushina looked around and towards the sound of flames crackling. It was a sound she was very familiar with thanks to having a childhood filled with camping in the wild, climbing trees and hunting game.

To her immediate right; Ward was sitting, holding a metal tray with a batch of eggs that were cooking over a small campfire surrounded by a circlet of stones while Willow sat on a nearby rock and ate a bacon.

Wait...

That wasn't meat.

That was a red tin can.

A honest-to-goodness tin can.

"Well, well, well. Sleeping Beauty finally woke up. About time." said Ward as he glanced up at her briefly before turning his attention back to the food.

The red head rolled her eyes and stretched her arms out, a tiny smile appearing on her face at the boy's comment despite herself.

Willow then broke the moment by belching loudly. The Satyress started to talk about something or another but the scent of fresh fried eggs permeated through the air and caused her stomach to grumble loudly, drowning out Willow's voice and drawing Ward's attention.

"Want some?"

Ward gallantly offered, holding out a paper plate full of them.

Kushina grinned at him, taking the plate and the fork stabbed into the eggs, "Yeah. Thanks a bunch! I'm starving!" she then added with a small glare, "This doesn't make us friends just so y'know."

Ward snorted but didn't offer a comeback, and the next couple of minutes passed in silence.

"So..." Willow started conversationally, looking at Kushina with well-hidden scrutiny, "How did you sleep last night? Any strange dreams?"

The red head looked up with a piece of egg white hanging from her mouth, a questioning look on her face since most of her dreams could unilaterally be called strange. Willow decided she should explain herself as Ward took a seat on the rock beside her and started eating his own fill of eggs, "Most demigods get visions when they first learn about their heritage. Sometimes they don't remember them, but they do receive them. I heard the Heph cabin call it an awakening, since that's when your powers start to slowly manifest."

Nodding, she decided to tell them about her dream between her bites. She was already listening to their crazy, might as well make them hear hers.

At first Willow just looked plain confused at the large amount of graphical details she could recount, but when Ward whispered something in her ear she seemed to grow worried about something and started arguing with the boy in hushed whispers and pointed looks. Even when Kushina finished her meal the two were still looking at each other, rudely leaving her out of their semi-telepathic conversation.

Finally, the red head couldn't stand it any longer.

Clearing her throat, she drew their attention.

She waved.

"Hi! The kid you kidnapped is feeling left out here."

Their looks turned flat in coordinated unison that felt a little eerie.

Kushina missed the glint of sadness in Willow's eyes since she was far from good at reading people (living without much contact with civilization for most of one's childhood did that), but even she noticed the flash of emotions running across Ward's face.

Guilt, maybe?

It was gone in a heartbeat.

He sighed before answering, "Something is wrong on Olympus. The gods are fighting."

Kushina scoffed, crossing her arms across her chest and turning her head up haughtily.

"So what? Big deal. In the old stories the gods were always fighting. Did Zeus bang a daughter of Poseidon or is Hera maybe tired of his womanizing ways. Or did Hephaestus make a virginity belt for Aphrodite. Maybe Ares outsmarted Athena and she's feeling pricklish? No? Maybe some poor guy stumbled on Artemis again and she transformed him into an animal, but he was a demi-god so his parent is angry." Willow snickered at the last example, "Did I hit the nail on the last one? I could go on y'know."

Meanwhile Ward was looking at the Uzumaki girl like she had gone mad before turning his gaze upwards in alarm, as if expecting the heavens to split open and usher in their deaths any second.

~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~

"She's certainly got her father's inconsiderate mouth. Not to mention her mother's attitude." A single woman of undeniable beauty, so much that it seemed incomprehensible to depict, sitting in a chair of glittering marble and shining obsidian said dryly, before looking at her husband out of the corner of her eyes, "And she already pegged you down without even meeting your latest bastard. If she wasn't what she is, she would receive my favor this very instant."

Zeus, the ancient Greek deity, Lord of the Sky and King of Mount Olympus, frowned at the image contained within the Heart of Olympus. An image of a young girl with growing crimson hair that looked so much like his little hunting princess did when she was younger that it brought waves of melancholy upon the old god.

He could already feel his headache growing with this little one brought into the picture.

Fate damn you, Naruto!

~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~

After realizing that no, they weren't going to be thundered to death by an insulted God King, Ward decided their break time was over.

"Pack up the camp girls, we have to get going." At Kushina's rising protest, he shook his head, "Come on, I'll explain as we walk. We're late enough as it is."

In less then a minute the two packed what camping gear they had (a survival knife with a spark ignition stick, paper plates and forks and a pan) and got up, putting out the fire and throwing a can of water over it before turning towards a random direction (at least it felt like a random direction to her) and marching on.

Kushina pouted, but walked after them.

"It's true that the gods fight a lot. But this is bad. Like World War 2 bad; which they are a root of by the way. And I can't tell you why they're fighting. All I can tell you is that a god or goddess broke a pretty serious oath. I think they should just make her sit on the naughty mat, but that's just me…" he chuckled as the trio walked through the forest, walking over a tiny stream. The red head looked at him weirdly for a moment as a startling thought occurred to her.

"You guys know who my Olympian parent is, don't you? That's why you weren't calling me by my real name?"

Willow slowed down to walk besides the girl, "We have a pretty good guess, Kushina. Your dream and the signs kinda made it obvious, not to mention what's happening back at Olympus. And for how we know your name..." she grinned, "That's a secret, Astrid."

Kushina glared at her, fists clenching.

"Did you hit your head, or do you want me to do it for you? I told you already I resent being called by that name."

Willow shrugged her shoulders, looking ahead of them.

"You may not perceive it as such, but that's the name you were given by your Olympian sire and that's the name - only name - they'll acknowledge. The Gods can be like that. Us calling you Kushina is a courtesy, nothing else."

Kushina grovelled before taking a deep breath.

"Then at least tell me who my mother is." She normally didn't care who her other parent is, but dammit if all this talk about crazy stuff didn't make her curious. Her father always had mixed feelings about her, telling her not to hate her mother for throwing them away despite holding a grudge himself. Kushina liked to think she hated her mother by choice.

Ward's voice interjected as Willow opened her mouth to answer, "We can't tell you even if we wished to. Only the gods can tell you that. If we told you and they found out..." he shuddered, "Imagine every organ in your body being crushed to paste without doing any actual damage before someone poured lava into your blood stream. Then imagine that happening for every moment of your life. Yeah, they might decide to do worse."

"I can keep a secret!" Kushina argued in a loud voice.

Ward snorted.

"Keep a secret from the gods? That's like trying to lick your elbow without a tongue, which might actually be our punishment if they are feeling particularly merciful. Maybe when we get into camp, Mr. D will tell you. If not, he or she will have to 'claim' you." he said with an effort to stay gender-neutral.

Kushina slowed down in her footsteps at that.

"What do you mean 'claim'?" she asked, her tone turning frostily, "If it's anything like 'marking your territory', you can count me out right now. I don't need any of this crap. My dad's more than enough of a parent in my life."

"And how long do you think your precious _daddy_ could survive with monsters attacking you every waking moment of your life?" Ward asked rhetorically, his voice dripping with derision as he looked at her over his shoulder, "You're incredibly lucky to have survived for so long without aid. Now that you're aware, or 'awakened', your scent is that much powerful. Monsters would flock to attack you."

Kushina huffed, "My dad's a bad-ass, for your information. He would probably break their necks before they even realized what's happening."

Ward and Willow laughed together. Idly, she noticed they weren't nearly as lovey-lovey out here as they were in school, "Well, usually your godly parent sends a sign." He said, ducking to avoid a low-hanging branch. "I'll leave Chiron to explain the difference between mortals against demigods. Just know that whatever he might have done in his life won't prepare him for having to fend of a herd of bullmen, or a flight of harpies. The Minotaur's offspring are like dump trucks on steroids."

Kushina huffed again and looked the other way, doubtful of the boy's words. Actually, she knew that what he was implying was a loud of crap in the end. If he, a boy just a bit older than her could kill a monster as easily as he did back in Falcon Ridge she had no doubts her awesome father wouldn't be able to smack them a new one, if he was feeling playful.

A man who can wrestle grizzlies into submission was no sissy, believe it!

"Who is your Olympian parent then?" she asked, and had to duck to avoid being whacked by the branch Ward had just ducked under, "Hey!"

"That's private."

"Come on! It's a simple question. You owe it to me!" Kushina defended herself, pointing a finger at him.

"None of your business. And I owe you nothing." He answered curtly, roughly pushing past some innocent blueberry bushes.

"Why won't you tel-" her words were cut off as the world turned blue again and she couldn't move. Nothing moved, nothing except Ward.

Kushina glared at the boy's back in annoyance.

Willow was frozen next to her.

She did not look like a happy pony - No! Satyr! Bad Kushina!

"I don't want to talk about this, all right?" he said as he stormed off, not bothering to restart time.

It took them 15 minutes to regain movement and Kushina tracked him down with murderous intent once she was free.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Finally, after several incidents of headbutting and long shouting tirades 'tween Ward and Kushina, the trio of teenagers reached the edge of a small mountain that overlooked a valley.

Looking down into the valley from her heightened position Kushina noticed a large camp snugly nestled between two mountains – the one she stood on and another on the other end of the valley. She couldn't see much else from where she was, but the red head did pick out a field of strawberries, bright specks of red against the green grass and a lake further in the back.

She wondered why the air felt so much different here than it did back home. Like it was more... charged.

"Let's go. Mr. D will be expecting us." said Ward as he started to trek down and the two complied after a few moments.

As the land sloped downward, she could see more and more of the camp. There were a bunch of cabins and campers, courts and canoes, swords and satyrs and all sorts of things she'd expect to see in a Medieval recreation of a boot camp. She could hardly believe how big the camp really way. The most she had imagined was a cabin or two and a mess hall. Instead, the camp must be at least 10 acres, maybe even more. There were at least 15 cabins, each one unique. There was a large mansion too, the only building that wasn't a cabin in some way. It was cherry red with a black roof. The large porch was painted white, giving it a foreboding look.

The trio attracted a lot of attention as they made they way deeper into the camp, and not all of it was friendly.

Ward especially was attracting a lot of glares from the campers.

As they reached the porch, Ward turned to look at the red head nervously.

"What?"

"Uh... please, mind your manners around Mr. D. He is definitely not someone you want as an enemy."

Kushina bristled at what the time controlling boy was implying, but didn't act out in any other way. She noticed just how jittery he was and with a sour face, nodded reluctantly. Hey, the boy saved her life, at least she could make his job a bit easier now if they were going to met his boss. They walked up a short set of stairs and reached the door as Ward, taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, opened it and took a step inside.

Willow and Kushina traded looks and followed him in.

The three walked into a dingy room with a shabby card table set up in the middle, several closets and a sink hooked up to the walls. Sitting by the aforementioned shabby table was a pudgy old guy wearing a leopard shirt. He was playing cards with a…

Kushina blinked, then rubbed her eyes, and blinked again.

Yep, she was most definitely going crazy.

How else could you explain the at-least-six-feet-tall monster drinking a coke from one had and holding cards in the other?

The chubby geezer looked at his cards, sighed, and laid down his cards face-down.

"You're folding? Again? Isn't this the 130th time in a row you've lost?" the creature that looked like a horse from the waist down asked, traces of amusement seeping into its voice.

Minotaur, no. Harpy, no.

What was it called?

"Quiet, centaur. Don't make me turn you into a tree." Mr. Pudgy threatened, but it sounded more like he was simply going through the motion than genuinely angry.

Ah. Centaur.

That's right.

10 seconds passed in silence.

Kushina cleared her throat loudly, hands folded across her chest as she glared at the two men. She knew they were being ignored on purpose, and she didn't like it one bit. She turned her glare back at Ward when he nudged her with his elbow.

She jumped when the old guy roared something in a voice that seemed to make the mansion shake.

"You!"

She looked at him in alarm but his eyes were zeroed in on Ward.

A look of pure hatred distorted his already fatty features.

"You have the nerve to come in here after all the warnings we gave you?" He snarled as he rose to his feet and Ward flinched.

"Sir, I-" Ward's explanation was cut off when Mr. D snapped his fingers and thick vines erupted out of the wooden floor and bound Ward from the waist down.

"I-" Ward tried to talk again but Mr. D snapped his fingers (again) and the makeshift rope tightened around his throat.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing you ass?! He didn't do anything! Let him go!" Just because Kushina was mad at Ward for several reasons didn't mean that she was going to let this random guy choke him to death. As stated before she was in his debt for saving her life, as grouchy as that made her.

Mr. D took this turn to look at her and Kushina froze like a statue.

Instead of eyes, purple and red flames filled his eye sockets like ragging torrents of hellfires. The man - no, not a man, but something else, something greater - opened his mouth and she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for him to blast her into smithereens.

"Sir please don't! She doesn't know anything!" Willow exclaimed hurriedly from besides her.

Kushina opened her eyes and turned to look at her indignantly.

"Excuse me?" she yelled indignantly, "I know plenty, thank you very much! My dad's an awesome teacher. I'm not the one who failed English because I was too lazy to show up for the exam! Also, you were the one who spent every class giggling with Ward in the back, not me! So don't tell me I don't know anything! I may not know what the flip is happening right now, but I definitely know a thing or two! And in any case-" Kushina waved a fist through the air in front of her, prepared to go into an hour-long tirade, sick of all the secrets, when Willow interrupted her.

"Astrid, shut up."

Kushina – eyes red with furry – punched her, knocking her down on the ground.

"Fuck you Reid." she spat out, her restraint gone.

The female satyr got up, angrier that Kushina had ever seen her and prepared to punch back, but they were stopped when a small wall of wines sprung up between them.

"Hold on a minute you two, you can knock each other's lights out later." Mr. D said, drawing their attention and pointing a pudgy finger at Kushina, "She really doesn't know who I am?" Mr. D asked, looking quickly from one girl's face to the other, as if trying to catch a lie between them.

"How on Earth am I supposed to know what's going on when nobody will tell me anything without making it sound like a goddamned riddle?" Kushina asked, exasperated.

Mr. D narrowed his eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before indicating towards the pair of chairs that materialized on the other end of the table, "Great. I have to fill another one in on what's happening. Well, have a seat. This could take awhile."

She didn't move.

"What about Ward?"

Mr. D glared at her and said impatiently, "He'll stay right where he is until we finish talking. Now, sit. I won't ask you again."

Grumbling, Kushina did just that.

Willow sat down next to her, her cheek swelling again from Kushina's strong punch.

The Satyress was unsure whatever to be angry at Kushina or relieved nothing worse had happened.

"So, what do you know? About your current situation I mean. Anything at all?" he asked, plainly trying to be patient and failing.

He waved his hand over the table and a goblet appeared with a rich, crimson color.

"Remember your restrictions." Kushina's hallucination said sharply from her right.

"Surely he won't mind, just this once. It's the brat's mini-me. The other brat's kid too." Mr. D said as he raised the wine to his lips.

All of a sudden, thunder BOOMED outside, making the entire house shake and Kushina to jump in her seat in alarm.

"I'm guessing he does mind." Willow commented timidly.

Mr. D gave her a dirty look and waved his hand over his drink, which immediately turned light green.

"Mountain Dew." he explained in response to their curious looks, "I tried diet Coke for a while but it doesn't have the same zing. Anyway, answer my question."

Kushina, unsure if she should start visiting the loony soon or not, answered.

"I know that you, Willow, Ward, and the centaur aren't human." Mr. D snorted at this but she continued, withholding herself from barking at him, "I know that we are somewhere in New York State. I know that the 'gods'" Kushina raised her arms and used air quotes, "-are fighting over something or another, and I know that this camp was recently attacked."

"Just how much did you and the boy tell her?!" Mr. D roared at Willow.

She flinched and looked around, as if expecting vines to appear and bind her as well, too petrified to answer.

"They barely told me anything! I had a funky dream about the gods and I saw that a lot of the cabins looked like they were rebuilt." Kushina interjected before he could vine her... to death.

And yes, that is the first time she's ever used that as a verb before.

He took a deep breath and calmed down, taking a gulp of the unhealthy drink before talking again, looking at Kushina with half-interest, "Well, you have the basic gist of it. A goddess promised to remain childless and she had a kid. Big deal apparently despite everyone having a couple dozen kids running around the mortal world at any given moment. You are in Camp Half-Blood, run by a centaur and I. I am Dionysus, lord of the vine and the wine."

The leopard skin wearing fatso looked a lot more impressive and imposing when Dionysus was making grape vines spell out his name behind his head. Kushina looked into his eyes (flames?) and saw madness, utter madness. She saw people drinking and brawling. She saw a military commander passing out and getting betrayed by his own men. She saw an army pillaging cities, raping and murdering.

Kushina looked away, fearing for her sanity.

After a couple of moments she looked back towards the Olympian god, only to see him playing cards again. The Centaur gave the girl a sympathetic look, but it didn't help. This was too much to take in all at once.

"Who is my Olympian parent?" she asked, focusing on the one thing that was bugging her the most.

"Ahhh, he didn't tell you?" he actually seemed surprised about it, and Kushina gave him an odd look as he continued, "This might be a problem. Well, I hate to say it but I can't tell you," Dionysus said, shaking his head. "And by "hate" I mean totally don't care. Doesn't change my day."

"What? But you're a god! Surely you of all people could tell me!" she exclaimed.

"There are laws that even we gods must follow. And one of them is 'No one shall reveal godly parentage to a god's mortal offspring except the god or mortal involved.' Or something like that."

"That's a ridiculous rule!" Kushina yelled. "What could possibly happen to you if you broke it? You're immortal!"

Mr. D's eyes flashed and he stood up.

"We still feel pain, you unintelligent mortal! We feel the pain just as you feel if you were to break you arm, only we feel it times a million because it takes so much more effort to break us! And the River Styx," thunder boomed outside "always gets her way. So don't ever ask a god to break a promise made on the River." He looked so uber-serious that Kushina couldn't even come up with a witty statement (which doesn't happen a lot).

"And so, all that remains is to figure out what to do with you," Mr. D said, turning to glare at Ward. "Just because you have a powerful father, that doesn't mean you can disobey a direct command from a god."

"Why do you hate him so much?" she asked, unable to resist asking.

While Ward was an ass, he certainly didn't deserve such treatment.

Mr. D looked directly at her, and decided to humor her, "Let me tell you a little story, child, one I'm sure you've heard by now but your insignificant mind failed to connect the dots." Kushina glared at the insult, but the god didn't seem to give a rat's ass, "Once upon a time, there was an evil Titan named Kronos that ruled with cruelty and decimation, eating his own children out of paranoia, etc, etc. He was basically the greatest Tyrant in history. He had the marvelous ability of manipulating time. Sound familiar?"

At her choking sound, he took it as a yes.


	4. Divinity Defines

**Anime Law #8 - Second Law of Temporal Mortality** \- It takes some time for bad guys to die... regardless of physical damage. Even when the "Bad Guys" are killed so quickly they don't even see it coming, it takes them a while to realize they are dead. This is attributed to the belief that being evil damages the Reality Lobe of the brain.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

 ** _Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style_**

 **Chapter Four** : Divinity Defines

 _"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth  
and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."  
\- Albert Einstein_

~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~

"Hmph! Since you, for whatever reason that pain in the ass decided, don't know of the events in our recent if troubled past, I suppose I should enlighten you." The wine god said with a drawn out sigh, "Now pay attention half-ling, I'm not recounting this twice. Got it?" Dionysus asked, not even waiting for Kushina to nod before starting the tale, "Once, a very long time ago, when those oversized lizards served your, if at all possible, dumber ancestors, Kronos ruled the world as the King of Titans. He was defeated by the elder Olympians. Then, some 30 years ago, he tried to rise again. He got really close, but he was thwarted by some young demigods, or half-bloods, as some prefer. His soul fled out, into Tartarus. Or so we thought."

Mr. D paused momentarily to take a sip of his soda while his eyes focused on Ward, narrowing, "It turns out that he had another mortal body ready as backup in case someone defeated him. He possessed the mortal and kept getting stronger, keeping hidden, until finally it was too late for us. We had been lulled into a false sense of security when, 10 years later, he regained his immortal form, and chaos broke out everywhere. Legions upon legions of monster attacked Mount Olympus. The Sphinx made a reappearance, followed by Echidna and all manner of foul beings that the Others didn't clean up. The Gods of the West were ambushed in the middle of the night in search of Rhea. We never had a chance against the army facing us. The cowards had taken our mortal children hostage, and I'm sorry to say, they got results."

Another gulp of the sweet soda down the throat, a quick belch that made her skin crawl from its potency and the god of wine and vine was back on track, chuckling, "You'd never guess who the first one to submit was when his kids were threatened." The skies rumbled ominously, and Mr. D waved a hand in the air, "Ye' sure, sure. Back on track, we were bound in chains of celestial bronze and led to Kronos's palace on our knees. For months on end we were tortured and tormented, fractured and put together only to be denied respite with visions of our children being tortured. The humans, their masses? They didn't notice a difference even as slow changes were being made to destroy the western civilization."

Mr. D then paused and made an odd face, as if he himself doubted what would come out of his mouth next.

"Then something incredible, extraordinary, and quite frankly, outlandish happened. A mortal man of all things marshaled the armies of Kronos against him, destroying the other titans before none other was left but Kronos. He then faced The Crooked One and, after battling for 5 days and 6 nights, forced the titan to flee. Kronos used his time-altering powers to escape and travel through the weave in the fabric of this world, but the mortal kept chasing him across the globe. Ally-less and weak, he paid us one last visit. He would agree to return into Tartarus, but only if we wouldn't, how should I put this, _'play with our food'_. Also, he requested protection for his legacy, whatever the hell that was supposed to be, in exchange for our freedom. All of the gods took the oath, and he unbound us. We immediately destroyed him and regained our territory. Imagine our surprise however, when we heard of a rebellion in Dallas. A hundred people were murdered on the streets in broad daylight. And guess who was leading them?" Dionysus looked straight into Kushina's eyes as he asked the question, chortling at the expression that was on her face before turning to sneer down at Ward, "You got it brat. The slime on the ground in front of me."

Kushina shook her head, "You're lying, that's impossible. According to what you said all of that happened well over 2 decades ago! He couldn't have even been born then!"

Mr. D turned his head to her disapprovingly, as if she was failing some sort of test before shaking his head.

"Really girl? And pray tell me, what fundamental force can this little shit extort his will over?" he asked rhetorically, leaning deeper into his chair and chucking back the soda can for a few seconds as he waited for the proverbial zing to sound off.

 _Time._

"To put it simply, this slime doesn't age. He's an _immortale_ **.** "

"...What?" Kushina asked, flabbergasted.

Her mind argued against everything and anything that came out of the god's mouth. It was all too much to take in. Monsters, Gods, Centaurs, Titans, immortals, time-traveling and controlling powers, summoning things out of mid-air, freaky visions from neglectful parents. Was she really one of these kids. Was her parent really an Olympian. Did her papa really bang a goddess? The old tales, were they all real? The good and the bad? Was this why her dad kept insisting she read those fairy tales when she was younger?

Was Ward really the son of a Titan; the most evil Titan of all time?

And he killed innocent, defenseless people for no reason?

"Yep." he said jovially, "Oh, were you under the impression that he was a good guy? Well, hate to burst your bubble princess, but he's not. He's nothing but a monster. Unfortunately, we can't simply disintegrate him into sub-baryonic particles or Styx will have all our heads." Mr. D spat, standing up and walking around the wooden table to glare at Ward, his expression loathsome and foul, "Now, should I turn him into a tulip or a daisy? Both are equally girly. Hmmm..."

"B-But.. Ward couldn't have done that! No way! He's an asshole, but a good natured asshole! Right?" the whiskered red head protested, looking towards Willow for support.

When the half-human half-animal girl looked away in silence instead of speaking up, Kushina knew it was true.

Ward was a monster.

Without further ado the red head stormed out of the mansion, too confused to talk it out anymore.

Which wasn't a whole lot of fun because she had forgotten about the steps.

Nothing says 'I'm normal!' like plummeting down 5 stairs onto a startled young man, almost smashing into his chest and potentially bowling them both over. Fortunately, or maybe not, she only grazed him before falling face first into the dirt. Which did not feel pleasant at all, seeing as she had opened her mouth in alarm and ended up eating some dirt. She could already imagining her father droning about what she did wrong while holding his sides in pain from laughter at the image that the mishap left her in.

"Need some help?"

Spitting out a couple of twigs and a leaf, Kushina ignored the flicker of pain in her nose and knees when the boy offered her a hand.

"Sorry about that. I couldn't see where I was going and I forgot the stairs." she rubbed the back of her head with a nervous laugh.

The buy chuckled, waving it away, "That's fine. I'm Edonis, son of Aphrodite. And you are?" he inquired with a charming grin, taking a subtle pose that flaunted his beauty.

Kushina flushed like a rose at the boy's gaze, missing how he quickly and expertly undressed her with his eyes before looking back up into hers innocently. He had light, dirty blond hair that refused to be contained and eyes that were just as deep as her dad's - which meant they were probably the deepest blue possible. In fact he looked like a scragglier version of her father, with a different shade of hair.

Weird.

"Kushina Uzumaki... umm, daughter of Naruto Uzumaki." the girl noticed his confused look, and continued to elaborate, "I don't know who my Olympian parent is, I just arrived."

His friendly, up-until-then charming grin quickly turned to a grimace of disgust, and he took a hard-to-miss step back.

"Oh. An undecided. Like we don't have enough of those." He turned his nose up and away as if she stank, "Hermes cabin. It's the dark brown shack at the end. Look for the people no one wants," he said as he walked away, probably going to count his money or spit on poor people or something.

"Asshole." Kushina muttered before she started walking down the rows, looking around in amazement at the details that had gone into every inch of the cabins.

The first one had a dark cloud hovering over it, with lightening raining down every couple seconds before striking the ground harmlessly. The entire building had an electric current running through it, like it was just waiting for someone to accidentally bump against it and get tasered.

The second one was just as ostentatious. It was light blue, surrounded by a white picket fence. Contained in said fence were about a dozen peacocks. From a distance they looked beautiful, with all of their plumage and bright colors. However, as the Uzumaki girl walked nearer, she noticed that they were hissing and sending venomous glares at any student who happened to pass by. Those two cabins must be the head cabins or whatever. They were at the top of what looked like a football field. There were 6 cabins on one side and 4 on the other, with more to the sides, scattered around the area and amidst the trees. The ones on the left had a more masculine feel to them, while the ones on the right had a distinctive feminine touch.

Noticing that the 'dark brown shack' was on the left Kushina headed in that direction, going on her merry way. Looking at the intricate designs helped distract her from the fact that her whole world had been turned upside down in the last two days. Her dad rarely spoke of her mother beyond what he first told her when she turned 10, but when he did it was always with many mixed emotions. His eyes would get a lost far-off look in them while he would clench his knuckles, something he did whenever he was restraining himself from punching something. Despite it, a smile would always be on his face.

Kushina always took what he said at face value, but she now wondered if there were more sinister reasons for living alone as they did, half-cut away from modern civilization.

If her mother was anything like Edonis', she did not want to know.

Kushina continued to look around her while walking through the forest, taking in the details. Cabin number 3 was cool, in an ocean kind of way. The cabin was a dark blue and it had animations of sea creatures swimming across the front, with advanced depth of field projections that made the creatures appear as real as they could get.

At least, she thought they were sea creatures.

"They don't show us stuff like this in our Science books," the read head muttered to herself.

One of the animations was sort of like a giant squid, with a beak-like object instead of a mouth, with what looked like planks of wood stuck in its flesh here and there, swimming around while waving its tentacles around haphazardly, causing the other animations to steer clear of it. Kushina stood there fascinated for about ten minutes before tearing her eyes away from the cabin and looking at the others.

Cabin 4 was on the other side of the field, so she skipped it and went onto cabin 5. This one looked like it was falling apart. It was painted in what once could have been a bright red with a stuffed dragon's head, complete with fangs, guarding the door. Just looking at it made her anger rise for some reason so she tore her stare away from it. She noticed that every satyr and other mythological creatures around her seemed to avoid looking at it, so she skipped on.

She then heard a series of thumps behind her, coming closer.

"Who's there?" Kushina asked abruptly, spinning around on her heel and dropping down into a hand to hand stance.

Coming towards her was another redheaded girl on crutches who looked at her in mild amusement, "Jittery much?" she joked, "I'm Amanda. And who be you?"

After talking to Edonis, Dionysus and spending over a full day with Ward, Kushina was kind of surprised to hear anyone in here being polite.

"I'm Kushina. I'm new." she said, extending her arm to shake hers before stopping and feeling like an idiot.

How was she supposed to shake hands with crutches?

Kushina withdrew her arm and looked away half-shamefully. Amanda must have noticed the look on her face, but other than a small grin she didn't show it. Kushina immediately took a liking to her.

"So, erm, where's everyone from... well, here?" she asked lamely, waving a palm around herself and looking around in poorly hidden interest, "All I see are people with animal parts... and wood parts?" Kushina paused when taking a glance at a tall, gorgeous blonde that had bark on her pale skin, before looking down in wonder, "Yeah, I'm lost. Reading about Greek stuff was never any fun."

"Everyone is out in the west woods playing Capture the Flag. I had an accident with one of the... War's children," Kushina sensed a story in her pause, "...as you can tell by my ankle. So, I have to sit this one out. I noticed that you really seemed to like the cabins."

"Oh yeah! These are the coolest cabins ever! Not even dad's mountain cabin can compare!" she exclaimed loudly as the two girls walked toward cabin 7. This one seemed like one huge mirror, reflecting the sun right into peoples' eyes. Kushina didn't stare at it too long, not exactly eager to lose her eyesight.

Amanda explained a little bit about each of the cabins, using the Greek Gods in present tense, which was pretty weird.

"These aren't the original cabins. Two times in the last several dozen years, monsters invaded this camp and burned it to the ground. So the designs have become much more impressive," she laughed, looking around as if she was in one some inside joke.

"What cabin do you belong to?" the red head decided to ask, wondering if it was rude or not.

If Edonis had done it so casually, at least it wasn't a deadly insult.

"Cabin nine, Hephaestus." the other red head answered, sounding bummed about it for some reason. Before Kushina could ask why was that, Amanda pointed out cabin 9.

It looked like one huge furnace, with stacks on it blowing out black smoke. It's walls were made of blackened steel, with... was that coal? Growing beside the doors? Where windows would be, it had flames. Instead of a roof, it had flames. In the space where a door should standing, it had (you've probably guessed it) flames... Well, there was actually a door, but it looked more like a set of prison bars that let out fire. Its fence? Made of flames. I was a good 90 feet away from them but the young Uzumaki could still feel the burning heat radiating from the cabin.

"That's... nice?" Kushina offered meekly, restraining the urge to fan herself with her bare hand.

Finally they reached cabin 11. It was rundown looking, with a door that was barely hanging on its hinges. Hanging above the door was a symbol she barely remembered seeing once in the books her dad made her read. It was a pole with two snakes wrapped around it.

"Home sweet home." Kushina muttered sourly. Her mood turned for the worst upon reaching their destination. What she wouldn't give to have her dad pop out of nowhere like he sometimes did to keep her on her toes and whisk her back to their home.

"Well, this is Cabin 11. Hermes's cabin. This is your home for the foreseeable future. Go ahead, step inside. Make yourself at home."

She took a couple steps into the cabin and looked back, waiting for the other girl to follow.

When she didn't move, Kushina spoke up.

"Are you not coming in with me?"

The daughter of the Forge shook her head.

"I can't. Sorry. It's against the rules," she said, taking a step away for good measure.

Kushina glanced at the cabin before looking back, tilting her head to the side.

"What would happen if you stepped inside? The world explodes?" she snickered, her whiskered cheeks stretching wider.

Amanda hesitated and seemed to consider the red head's words.

"Well come on! It can't be that bad." Kushina wheedled, not wanting to go in there alone, "What's the worst that could happen?"

As if she wasn't tempting Fate(s) by saying that.

 **~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~**

Naruto halted suddenly, climbing up what was running to be the single longest never ending stairway he's ever been on to look to the side and away into the distance. His eyes roamed past the momentous floating mountains and islands mingling with desolate clouds, beyond the flying junks rowing through the air and sailing past the hanging waterfalls. His face, with the signature whiskers on it, slowly adopted the appearance of being in deep consideration. Finally, after a near minute of drawn out silence from the blond, a short, lithe man wreathed in furious flames and little else lost his patience with the silent Uzumaki.

"Are you going to move along already, Tenpename, or do you want me to kick you all the way to the top?" the kami asked, spitting out Naruto's tittle - at least amidst the eastern deities - like it tasted something rotten.

Sadie rolled her eyes at the brash kami's temper as she stepped to the side and moved around the blond and the fire kami, continuing her way up to the top while the toad from before, the one her blond friend summoned from what he claimed was another dimension, hopped after her.

"Just chill, Kōjin. You'd never land a hit on him and you know it. Just step a-r-o-u-n-d him like a Good. Little. Boy." she said slowly, as if talking to a particularly dim child even as her back was turned to it, "Or I'll cool you myself."

At her words the kami's fires flared hotter, his flaming eyes, flaming hair and other flaming extremities turning a burning white at the woman's impudent _insolence_ , but when a large halo of glowing emerald hieroglyphs constantly pulsing with a faint divine aura wrapped themselves around her hand, conjured up in less time than what it took for a wagtail to flap its wings once; aiming at it, the kami stood down begrudgingly.

"Hmmph. Consider yourself lucky to be out of Takama-Ga-Hara's jurisdiction, human, or else the heaven's judgment for daring to insult a kami like that would be swift. The sooner we reach Amanoukihashi and pass over and you present your case, the sooner I'll be rid of you both and the sooner I can go back to my duties."

Normally Naruto would frown and argue about the tittle the eastern gods' have given him after a little... altercation with them following his daughter's birth, but this time he wasn't paying much attention to the fuming kami.

Shaking his head, he continued up the never-ending stars as he answered its question, a small smile on his face.

"It's nothing.. I just... I feel inordinately proud of my little girl for some strange reason."

 **~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~**

Though she was still hesitant, Amanda felt a peculiar obligation to dare under the younger girl's innocent scrutiny.

Cautiously, she took a step towards the god of transitions' cabin. When the world didn't burst into fire and flames and atomic explosions, she took another.

This method continued with her going the speed of an abnormally slow turtle until finally, warily, she reached the doorway.

The senior red headed member of the camp stuck out her hand and pulled open the door. Kushina released a breath that had wanted to escape her for a while when Amanda visibly relaxed and crutched on into the cabin. Kushina followed her eagerly, excited to finally see the inside of one of the cabins.

Amanda looked around with a slight smirk on her face, "This place isn't nearly as cool as-" Kushina only had a brief glimpse of a messy dorm with clothes thrown across the floor and aged furniture before a thunderous CRACK rumbled through the air around them and the world spun out of focus and into colours she could even begin to imagine, let alone comprehend.

It felt like they were being sucked into a vacuum cleaner as a blinding flash enveloped her senses.

"Oh no. Oh no. Oh no."

Kushina heard the other red head mutter as they were deposited somewhere else by the light. The odd sense of vertigo left the red head unbalanced and she fell, unprepared for the sensation of being teleported through space.

"Ouch!"

Shaking her head to get the specks of light out of her vision, she looked around herself in a daze. It seemed like they were dumped into a huge cathedral, with intricate designs on the walls that made her think of the Pentago and the White House, for whatever reason. Kushina was sure the designs would have continued on the ceiling, if they had one. Instead, it was open to the void of the universe, with endless stars twinkling in the far distance. They almost appeared to have been arranged like that just for this building's viewing pleasure. Kushina stared at the hole where a roof should be for a long time before realizing that Amanda was oddly being quiet. Looking to her side, she saw the red head bowing. Then, for the first time since falling into this chamber, she looker around her at eye level. Sitting around them in huge thrones were about a dozen of the scariest giants she'd ever seen. They were all radiating this weird, terrifying power.

Her knees collapsed, and for some reason, she couldn't get up.

"Who are you?" One of the men, the most terrifying of them all, commanded quietly, but for some reason it felt like it was resonating through the building.

"I'm Kushina. Kushina Uzumaki. It's rude to demand one's name before introducing yourself. Didn't your parents teach you that much!?" she snapped back from where she was hunched over, ignoring the sharp inhale of air Amanda did.

The man shook his head,

"That isn't the name you were bestowed with. You are Astrid."

Kushina's fuse blew. She has had enough of people calling her by that... that... not-her-name! She was about to retort in a loud an obnoxious manner, before it hit her.

These must be the Olympian Gods... and she'd just mouthed off one of them.

They held the power of the world - literally - in their hands and she was being... her.

' _We're doomed._ ' the silent grovel coming from on of the gods - she couldn't tell which - all but confirmed it.

However, the god sitting in the middle of them all merely smirked at her and gestured with his hands to look around, "Who do you think we are, halfling?"

Kushina already knew, but looked around anyway. The Olympians were organized in an horseshoe, with the leader in the middle - she guessed that was Zeus, if the lightning bolt leaning against his throne and the stench of ozone was anything to go by - with what looked liked his wife besides him on his right. On his left side there was a tanned surfer dude holding a stick with three prongs.

 _A trident? That would be... Neptune? No, wait, that's Roman... Poseidon!_

The throne next to him seemed... void, somehow. Like it was missing the source of its mojo. She felt her eyes draw towards it but shook herself out of it. Following that there was a throne made of solid gold in which sat a young teenager, who was rocking out on a PSMini, complete with a holo display and wireless earplugs. There was another empty chair next to him, glowing a faint silver. The colour reminded her of the moon's glow. The next seat had Kushina blinking.

"Mr.D?"

He gave a slight nod and the barest hint of a smile.

Next to the leader's wide - Hera was her name, right? - was a woman sitting on a throne of corn. The stalks were actually bending up to form her throne, but how did they support her whole body Kushina didn't know. The goddess looked at her in disinterest, but smiled lightly when Kushina's eyes landed on her. Next to the corn lady was a woman with icy gray eyes, wearing one of those ancient greek robes that you could see in historical books. It looked like she was reading a book, but every now and then Kushina would notice her eyes flick up to take in what was happening.

A huge man with muscles the size of a truck sat next to the reader. He had a hammer laying across his lap, but one of his hands was busy holding hands with a lady in pink. Her throne was right next to his, and it was the most sickening thing Kushina had ever seen. It looked like Cupid had thrown up hearts and rainbows and she decided to sit in it. To her right was a man clearly not very interested in what was happening. He was wearing an awesome black and red stripped track suit, and he was leaning back in his chair, which was more of an armchair than a throne, unlike the others.

"I think you are the Greek gods."

The man smiled lightly and nodded.

"That would be correct. I am Zeus, Master of the Sky. This is my wife Hera and that is Poseidon, followed by Apollo. I believe you've met Dionysus?"

Kushina nodded.

"On my wife's other side you see Demeter, Athena, then Hephaestus and Aphrodite. And lastly, but certainly not least, you have Hermes. Together, we are the Olympians." The room shook every time he said a name.

Something about this setup was bugging Kushina, who frowned while looking around without even attempting to hide her curiosity. The big picture still didn't make much sense, so she would have to find the answers to the little things first... or, as little as they can be with actual gods involved.

"Aren't there supposed to be 12 of you?"

"We have had a slight... problem within our ranks." the supreme god paused, as if weighing his words before he continued, "That is the real reason we have summoned you to Mount Olympus. We don't really care about a little rule being broken. Now that I mention it." he snapped his fingers.

Amanda disappeared in a flash of white static.

"She's back at the camp," he explained, noticing Kushina's horrified look with a gaze of amusement, "Anyway, you are the cause of all the troubles the we have been experiencing lately. Well, actually, it's not all your fault. Most of the blame falls on your mother, some on your father who seems to... jump the gun a lot, as the mortals would say. In fact, the lot of you seem to enjoy causing me headaches."

Kushina gulped at the deity's words.

"Who... who is she?" the whiskered teen asked tentatively, now that the chance to finally learn where half of her came from appeared, she couldn't disregard it no matter what she thought at first, "My mother I mean. Can I know her name?"

"That would be my daughter Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt."

Just as Zeus said those words a young woman in her early 20s walked into the cathedral-like room, wearing urban grey-silvery camouflage cargo pants and a midnight blue long sleeved leather jacket, along with a belt and... were those cowgirl boots?

"Did you need me Father?" she asked, ignoring the rest of the room who were now staring directly at her, "I was under the impression that I was banned from Olympus until..." the rest Kushina drowned out, unable to take her eyes off the goddess. This was her mother?

As if she had sensed the look, Artemis turned to look at the whiskered red head.

" _Mom...?_ "

 **UPDATED on: 14.09.2016.**


	5. Just a Thing?

**Guest(s) who keep demanding I update another story in this story's review section:** Stop. You have become a fucking diarrhea. I'll update what I damn please, when I damn please, IF I damn please. One more and I'm taking that story from this site, I'm not joking. Don't test me.

 **Zetakira** \- I don't particularly care about reading fics. I have, in the 6 years I've been visiting this website only come across one, maybe two reading stories that were of any actual quality. The one I know is really good is actually a reading story of another Naruto/PJ crossover. I think it's Love of a Father. The one where he basically has no memories and has daughters with Athena and Aphrodite. If someone wants to write a reading story of my work, I won't stop them. But don't expect me to ever write or endorse one. I have neither the desire nor the know-how how to even begin writing a reading story.

* * *

 **Anime Law #9** **\- Law of Dramatic Emphasis -** Scenes involving extreme amounts of action are depicted with either still frames or black screens with a slash of bright color (usually red or white).

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

 ** _Artemis' Mistake: Uzumaki-Style_**

 **Chapter Five** : Just a Thing?

 _"Now, I suppose this is the time for me to say something profound..._

 _...  
...Nothing comes to mind."_

 _\- Lieutenant General Jonathan Jack O'Neill, Stargate SG-1_

 **~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~**

"...Mom?"

Kushina questioned in a disbelieving whisper when she saw the newly appeared goddess standing frozen stiff by the entrance.

Behind the red head the rest of the Olympian Gods shifted in their massive thrones, getting comfortable so they could watch the sure-to-begin drama. It wasn't everyday that they got to see the cool and aloof Artemis squirm and fumble in front of her progeny.

Except Zeus, who was staring at his daughter with a poignant look.

"...Mom?" the younger girl repeated when Artemis refused to respond.

Closing her eyes in an effort to compose herself, the Goddess of the Moon and Childbirth faced her fellows.

"Is this... _thing-_ " Kushina felt like someone had just kicked the wind out of her, hard, "-the reason you summoned me, Father? You as well as everyone here already know my view on the matter. That thing is no daughter of mine." Crossing her arms across her chest and leveling her progenitor a look, the goddess continued to express her opinion coolly and uncaringly, "As far as I'm concerned, it is nothing more than a blight on our society." Some of the gods murmured in between themselves while her brother shook his head. She ignored them.

In the meanwhile, Kushina could actually feel hers insides shriveling.

Thing?

That?

It?

Blight on society?

Why was her... her _mother_ saying these terrible things? She hadn't done anything to her!

Zeus looked entirely unbothered by her words, even as he made a show of pondering something with his hand on his beard, "Perhaps you two need sometime alone." Ignoring his daughter's rising protests before she could utter a word, he shared some unspoken words with the Gods.

In a flash of light - followed by various special effects no mortal could comprehend - the rest of Olympians vanished. Zeus then looked back at his daughter, his tone commanding and authoritative as he started to descend down the steps of his throne, his towering form shrinking with each step until he was just as tall as Kushina's dad.

"Artemis." like a soldier following orders and listening to her commanding officer, the goddess was suddenly standing more rigid then before, shoulders squared, "You will be welcomed back in these chambers if, and only if you can integrate _your_ daughter into our society." Zeus, being the prideful deity that he was, always took pride in siring children; godly or other wise, regardless of his actions or his wife's opinion. For one of his favorites to act like that wasn't acceptable, "Besides, I can't have Astrid starting wars by accident due to your incompetence. For all his powers, your mortal lover-" Artemis winced, "Will never understand our connection to domains. Use this opportunity and be prepared for your summons in a week's passing. She's your responsibility now that he's in the Others' realms; he won't stay there forever."

Artemis looked down at Kushina with no small amount of frustration visible on her face before turning back towards Zeus.

"But Father, I-"

The god's temper flared.

"That is my final decision!"

Thunder rumbled in the background, lightning flashing in the sky - space - above them.

Zeus gave his daughter a warning look.

"Don't kill her."

His words said, the lord of Olympus walked out of the chamber and the doors slammed shut behind him, leaving Artemis and her sole offspring in an awkward silence.

For all her spiteful words, Kushina always wanted to know where she came from. "So... um, how did you meet my-" Kushina started (the fact she never expected to have this chance did little to help her), but her supposed mother's deadly glare silenced her.

"Silence, creature!" Kushina's breath hitched, "You will not talk to me. You will not walk by my side, but behind me and out of my sight. I order you and you follow without comment or question. If you don't, I'm sure I can find a way around my father's command. And by that, I mean I'll find a way to erase your blightful existence in a way that not even your father could conceive." the woman threatened, pure frost dripping from every syllable before she started pacing back and forth, muttering to herself in a language that certainly wasn't English.

Kushina stared at her, dumbfounded.

She almost felt like she was having an out of body experience, really.

This was her mother? The goddess that gave birth to her? The woman her father loved - adored - so much?

Probably still did?

Oh _HELL NO_!

"Just what is your problem? I haven't done anything to you! It's not my fault the other gods and goddesses don't like you! But from what I've seen, I don't really blame them. If you treat them like garbage too then it's a wonder you ever found someone as nice as my dad!" Kushina yelled as loud as her lungs allowed her to after getting in the goddess' face. When the woman's face made a good impression of a fish, she turned around and began walking towards the door, intent on getting as far away from the bitch as possible.

She almost got away with it too.

Artemis shouted something in Greek - it certainly wasn't English - and suddenly Kushina couldn't move. Rays of silver and green light engulfed her and the young Uzumaki rose into the air like some invisible giant had plucked her right from the floor.

Then the screaming began.

It felt as if some massive ghastly hand was tearing through her insides, like the whole of the world's pressure was crushing her organs into pinprick paste, forcing them to explode inside her chest. Her brain felt like it was chopped into ribbons inside her skull. Her blood boiled in her veins as if it was replaced by molten metal. It felt like all the cells in her body were being torn apart. Kushina could think of nothing other than PAIN.

Then finally, mercifully, after what seemed like an eternity it stopped leaving Kushina to collapse on the floor in a heap of bruises and moans and _something felt so horribly_ _wrong_. Blearily, weakened from the divine 'punishment' her _mother_ inflicted upon her, Kushina opened her eyes, her throat far too hoarse to scream anymore.

Everything was different.

Her eyesight spread almost in all four directions, the depth perception was way off and the colors were different, with reds and blues being more prominent while the rest faded into dull tones and greys.

Kushina tried to stand up.

Then she realized with mounting horror that she was already standing and that her muscles were arranged completely different from before.

Artemis turned her into some small, insignificant woodland creature.

Terror gripped at her soul as the ground rumbled beneath her; vibrations that she'd have thought insignificant as a human. Slowly, shakily, she turned to look at Artemis who was approaching her while drawing an object from her back. Panic gripped at Kushina and refused to let go.

So she did the natural thing human beings - any beings - did when put into such extremely dangerous situation without preparations, when they let their instincts take hold.

She fled like a coward.

And by running, she meant stumbling over her feet with the occasional successful hop launching her forward.

She made such a terrible rabbit, the cynical part of her mind deducted.

And then Kushina froze abruptly. A glowing silver arrow tip floated not even an inch away from one of her eyes. Following the arrow's long profile her eyes landed on Artemis, standing in a some odd sideways crouch right in front of Kushina with a bow in her hands, arrow strung back, ready to shoot.

"Hmmm..." the goddes hummed in interest, looking down at her with a smirk, "Maybe you aren't a complete and total idiot after all, Astrid. Yes, this is a bow, and that is an arrow that will tear into that tiny body of yours and cut through all of your major organs."

Her smirk was sly, confidant and even gleeful.

For the live of her, which was in grave danger at the moment, Kushina could never understand what her kind and caring father saw in a creature as despicable as Artemis.

"You can't." Kushina squeaked, surprised her voice worked at all; or maybe she spoke bunny tongue.

The Huntress' grin quickly turned into a threatening leer, "That's true. Father never said anything about maiming."

A flash of blue and white streaked past her odd sense of vision and Kushina experienced an entire new level of hurt in her left leg.

Somehow, the goddess had managed to hit her back leg so she couldn't get it out or even attempt to move. Tears of agony glistened down Kushina's fur as her squeaky howls echoed her pain throughout the large chamber.

"I believe I told you not to speak to me."

For several minutes Kushina writhed and whimpered in agony on the floor of the Olympian chambers while her godly parent watched on cold-heartedly.

That's when the lunar goddess noticed something a glint of something small lying on the floor behind the rabbit and moved to pick it up. An ugly scowl took up residence across her face when she recognized the object, her head twisting to glare down at Astrid with disgust before turning her attention back to the necklace, "That buffoon, infusing an artifact like that with his own essence. And giving something like that to you." she growled dangerously, tightening her hold on the crystal in her hands.

Astrid's bunny ears could clearly hear the goddess' hand muscles strain before there was a muffled crunch.

Artemis shook her hand, allowing the green ground dust that was once a chakra crystal to float through the air like a brief mist.

"Naruto, you idiot!"

 **~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~**

 _"What_ are _you doing over there?" Artemis inquired as she walked up to a grown man of blond hair that was perhaps even more annoying than her younger twin brother._ _The same man she'd found lying near lifeless at the base of Mount Olympus, near one of her personal hunting grounds and subsequently brought to her brother to heal._

 _Leaning over his shoulder she took a glance at his constipated looking face before looking at his clasped hands, where some sort of golden glow was... glowing.  
_

 _The same man who, ever since then, refused to get out of her hair._

 _Putting up a barrier around her camps that kept males out accomplished nothing towards keeping him away, not when the supposedly mortal male could turn into a woman at whim. Cursing him, turning him into a jackal-ope to be hunted down shared similar results, leaving the man giggling as he transformed from a jackalope into a toad, fox or some other animal before reverting back to human form. Subsequently, all of her arrows failed to land no matter how hard she tried. He could always dodge them. Teleporting? Sure, he simply followed after her somehow, finding her in about a day or two.  
_

 _After a while she and her hunters grew tolerant - even accustomed to the strange blond's presence. He insisted on paying back his debt, and to do that he claimed he would follow her around wherever she went until the debt was repaid.  
_

 _Him never leering, staring, lusting or otherwise showing desire for any of the large gaggle of beautiful maidens and their goddess was a welcome change._

 _"Hm?" the blond her thoughts had been churning over opened his eyes, a startling shade of blue that she found herself staring into for a moment before him blinking broke the trance. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Oh, this?" he asked as he held up several shards of some crystal, "I'm trying to repair the jewel. It really means a lot to me and I'd love to have it back in one piece, a friend of mine broke it back home for giving him trouble, but he's cool now." he grinned, smiling radiantly before grabbing her hands.  
_

 _"Here, wanna help? I'm sure a goddess like you could do this no problem." the way he casually said goddess - as if mocking the tittle; the existence - made her temper rise. Even if he swore he would settle the debt he supposedly owned her for saving his life, he wasn't above prodding, taunting and annoying her. Sometimes he could be the most infuriating man in the world.  
_

 _"Fine then! Give it here!" she snapped, taking the shards grand and small from his palms and focused her divine power, "How hard can repairing a simple precious stone be? Men, so incapable."_

 _She would, after some time realize she'd never been angry at him for daring to grab her like that, even if she did get frustrated to learn that repairing a necklace like that proved out of her league and subsequently took out her frustration on him by shooting a hundred or so arrows in his direction. Laughing loudly, Naruto dodged them before challenging her to catch him.  
_

 _Red faced, Artemis pulled out her knives and raced after him._

 _Aphrodite's subsequent giggling once some of the passing gods saw their squabble lasted for weeks!_

 **~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~**

Biting her lips (...erm, rabbit fur-chin?) when she felt the celestial arrow being jerked out of her leg, Kushina flinched. Though she managed to keep from yelling in pain.

Her mother wasn't being gentle that's for sure.

When she was done Artemis stood up, discarded the arrow to the side and pulled another one from her quiver (which had mysteriously appeared on her back). She then aimed it down at Kushina who's leg was bleeding profusely. Trying to walk only ended up with Kushina falling down in a heap of terrified, bleeding rabbit.

"Have you learned your lesson, or do you need another demonstration?" Artemis asked, mock politeness in her voice.

Kushina quaked in fear, probably for the first time in her entire life. Her leg burned and she knew Artemis wouldn't hesitate to hurt her again. When the halfling didn't say anything sassy in response the Huntress nodded and snapped her fingers. Again, a weird light issued from the deity's fingers and wrapped around Kushina. Again, her terrified rabbit form rose into the air. Again, her cells felt like they were trying to kill themselves. Again, the agony overcame her mind, so that all she could think about is how she wanted to die. Anything to stop the burning.

Finally, she was thrown back to the ground.

Kushina had been hoping that her leg would be healed when she was turned back to human (half-human) but no such luck. Just below her knee there was a bloody splotch that showed through her pants, but at least it didn't go through her entire leg like before.

Still, there was no way that Zeus or one of the other Olympians wouldn't notice that she'd been hurt. Maybe then Artemis would be kicked out of Olympus again and she would be free to return to camp until her father returned or her Aunt found her. Of course that would mean that she would have to think about or interact with Ward-the-murdering-scumbag and Adonis-the-prat.

Glancing over her shoulder, she realized she wouldn't mind.

Anything would be better than sitting here with Mrs. Psychopath.

The young red head slowly got tried to get up on her feet. Unfortunately it was proving very difficult as she couldn't keep any pressure on one of her legs. Thankfully her dad taught her how to move when injured, and put a good emphasis on leg injuries and how to work around them. Something about mobility being crucial for survival.

"When you get to camp it will be pretty late. You will go straight to the cabin dedicated to me. You will only go outside at nighttime and you will not speak to any other demigods. At all. You will be isolated. However, that's your problem, not mine. And if I find you disobeying me, you'll wish you were dead." Artemis spoke disinterestedly, not even looking at her.

"Okay _, mom._ " Kushina said, before she was thrown down to the floor by some unseen force.

 _'Mom's'_ eyes flashed dangerously (and quite literally) before she started to blur around the edges like someone was zooming out but no one was moving. Before anything else could happen Hermes suddenly burst into the room, moving like Flash from those animated comics she'd seen in school, waving his hands around as he stooped between Artemis and Kushina.

"No no NO! Zeus said NO KILLING! Do you want to be punished again for disobeying him?" he said urgently, making the goddess pause.

Kushina realized that he was protecting her from something weird.

Maybe something terrible would happen when Artemis blurred.

It shall now be refereed to as "The Blurring of Doom".

Artemis managed to calm down and glared at Kushina who glared back, however meekly.

And then she was gone.

Hermes let out a sigh of relief.

"Whew. That was close. So, how bad are you hurt? Any broken bones, missing organs, mental scars?" he asked jokingly, still managing to look concerned somehow. Kushina just shrugged, not sure what to say. Now that there was actually a possibility of Artemis getting in trouble and ergo getting even angrier at her, she didn't want to test the limits the mad woman's patience could reach.

She liked breathing, thank you very much!

Hermes noticed her knee.

"Apollo! Get in here!" he yelled.

The teenager from the ostentatious golden throne walked in not even half a minute later, his earphones around his neck and his hair newly slicked back with gel. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his newly dressed jeans.

"What's up, Herms?" he asked, using a lame nickname.

Hermes gestured to her knee.

Apollo didn't look surprised.

"Did my sis shoot you? She has this nasty habit of doing that to people that are close to her." at Kushina's dry look, he scratched his cheeks before shrugging, "Well then, let me see your leg. I suppose you know basic medical procedures?" he said, turning serious and professional all of a sudden. His headphones even turned into a stethoscope. Kushina reluctantly pushed out her leg when Apollo crouched down and rolled up her pants' leg, remembering that he's the god of medicine.

Kushina winced. The wound was open and still bleeding.

Contradicting her earlier thoughts she could actually see parts of the bone and torn muscles where the arrow had gone through her rabbit leg, which almost made her throw up.

Unseen to her, Apollo's eyes narrowed fractionally. Just like with her father years ago, the girl's body was slowly regenerating on its own, flesh and sinew sewing together while that unique life-force of theirs even went so far as to prevent infection. Muttering a chant under his breath, Apollo waved his hands slowly over the wound, directing the healing process and encouraging cell division. Faster than Kushina could comprehend the hole closed up and the pain stopped.

The God put on a smile and looked up.

"Feel better?"

"Yeah! I feel way better! Thank you… ummm… Lord Apollo and Lord Hermes." Kushina finished awkwardly, unsure about how to address them. They were Gods!

"You can just call me Apollo, it's cool." the godly doctor interjected.

"And you can call me Hermes. Us two aren't real big on formalities." said the jogger.

"Umm... okay?" Kushina responded unsurely, before looking at them in curiosity, "So then, why does Artemis hate me so much?"

Both of them winced.

They sat in silence for several minutes before Apollo sighs and spoke up.

"Well, it's a long story." He ran a hand through his slick hair, "I guess I'll start way back at the beginning. After Artemis and I were born (we're twins you see), Zeus granted us our domains. Artemis became the Goddess of the Moon and Hunt, and I got all the cool titles. Anyway, when she was still really little, my dad granted her a couple wishes. One of them was that she could remain single and childless her entire life. Zeus granted her that wish, but he also said that she could retract it anytime she wanted. For thousands of years, she kept to it. She even inspired Athena and Hestia to follow it too. Together, they were the three maiden goddesses. Now, since she had you, they have turned away from her. Her followers weren't all too happy about it either."

Hermes chose this moment to pipe in, a frown on his face, "Which is kinda dumb when you think about it. Hestia was always about family sticking together, I mean she even gave up her seat to stop a serious argument from tearing Olympus into two and Athena has almost as many kids as Zeus. All of them are brain children, she doesn't birth them like other goddesses and can make them pretty much on the spot, but that's regardless."

Apollo looked like he wanted to add something in, before he shook his head and helped her stand up, "Anyway, I heard her command about not talking to demigods. I think you know someone who isn't a demi-GOD. Just saying. The kid ain't bad, he was just handed a bad hand in life. You can't choose your parents, as I think you've just experienced."

Kushina blinked up at him, since he was still taller than her.

"You... you sound much more reasonable than the stories made you out to be."

Apollo winked and tousled her head, much to the red head's chagrin, "There's this thing called growing up and taking responsibility kid. My sister hasn't reached that point, sadly. It's why I call her Lil Sis. Just don't tell that to anyone." the last part was said in a whisper, somehow making her giggle. Letting go of her hand, the Sun God took a step back, "In any case you should be going. Lil' Sis probably placed some wards on your cabin. I'm really sorry but there's nothing I can do about that. Hermes, if you could..."

Nodding, Hermes placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Bye, you're definitely my favorite niece, _Kushina_. Actually, you are my first niece. It was fun meeting you." Apollo said, chuckling, "And tell your pops I said hello. It's been a long time since we talked."

Before Kushina could say anything in response (and ask how come he used her name when every other god so far called her by that not-her-name) the sensation of going through a vacuum came over her again. When Kushina opened her eyes next, she was standing in the middle of Halfblood Camp. Turning towards Hermes, she saw the god's smile falter before he stepped back.

"Well, here you are. Try not to get into trouble. Olympus can't afford to rebuild itself one more time." With those mysterious words said he disappeared in a blur of movement leaving Kushina stuck in the camp, alone, with an express command not to talk with anyone there.

Yay...

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

DUN DUN DUN! And the mystery thickens.. or does it? This chapter was shorter, but I felt like this was a good place to close it, or else you'd have to wait a couple more weeks. And to make things clear, Naruto's blood is red, not ichor. And seriously, stop asking why she hadn't used that necklace. She grew up in a supernatural-free environment for reasons that had been touched on in this chapter, or was her strange reaction to his words not a clue enough? Also, FYI, she did call her dad. Y'know, ComWrist? Chapter 2? Anyone?


End file.
